When a worker is injured by a falling load or by a swinging load that causes a fall, §240 applies. Falling load cases are particularly strong §240 cases.
12 NYCRR 23-9 — power-operated equipment — addresses cranes specifically. Subsections cover operator qualifications, equipment inspection, capacity charts, lift planning, and rigging requirements.
Where the GC or owner had notice of unsafe crane operations or inadequate lift planning.
Where a component of the crane was defective — a sling, a hook, a brake, a structural member.
The liability chain is unusually long: property owner, general contractor, crane subcontractor, rigger or rigging subcontractor, signal person responsible party, equipment manufacturers, licensed crane operator personally in some egregious cases, and adjacent property owners in airspace cases.
NYC has specific licensing requirements — a Class A or Class B Hoisting Machine Operator license is required for most cranes. The operator’s prior incident history is part of the early case workup.
Injuries: crush injuries (often catastrophic, frequently fatal), traumatic amputations, spinal cord injuries, severe traumatic brain injury, multiple complex fractures, internal organ injuries, burn injuries, and mass casualty events.
Damages: past and future medical, lost wages and lost earning capacity, pain and suffering, loss of consortium, wrongful death where applicable.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Crane cases live in the lift plan, the pick package, the crane subcontract, and the daily logs. Was this crane subcontractor on the GC’s preferred vendor list, and what was the price difference from alternatives? Was the lift plan reviewed by a structural engineer or signed off by the safety officer alone? Was the project running behind schedule? Did this crane have prior maintenance issues? Was the operator’s prior project history clean?
In a typical negligence case, the defense will argue your case down with comparative-fault arguments — that you weren’t paying attention, that you took a shortcut, that you should have known better. Under §240, those arguments generally cannot defeat the claim. That is why §240 cases tend to settle higher and earlier than negligence-only construction cases.
Crane injuries can trigger Labor Law §240(1) (a load that wasn’t secured against gravity), §241(6) (Industrial Code rules on rigging, signal persons, and exclusion zones), and §200 (site control). Crane cases often involve several responsible parties.
Depending on the facts: the property owner, the GC, the crane owner/lessor, the rigging or signal company, the crane operator’s employer, and the crane or component manufacturer. Crane cases are usually multi-defendant, which is why they require early, careful investigation.
It can be. A mechanical failure of the crane, boom, cable, or controls can add a product-liability claim against the manufacturer or maintenance company on top of the Labor Law claims.
Yes. Missing signal persons, taglines, or barricaded swing/exclusion zones are core Industrial Code violations supporting §241(6). We secure the lift plan and crane records early.
Usually three years for injury, two years for wrongful death; 90 days for a notice of claim on a public job. Crane and inspection records must be preserved quickly.
