Roofer cases are textbook §240 cases. The work is at height, the hazard is gravity, and the protection requirements are clear:
The “sole proximate cause” defense — that the roofer was the only reason for the accident — rarely succeeds in roofing cases. Roof work is high-hazard work, and the contractor and owner have a non-delegable duty to provide adequate fall protection.
Roofer falls tend to produce catastrophic injuries because of the heights involved and the surfaces below:
Roofing cases turn on the roof safety plan, the fall protection equipment provided, and the inspection records. A working developer reads these documents fluently. He recognizes when the fall protection plan called for personal fall arrest systems but the workers were given only warning lines; when the roof inspection failed to identify deteriorated decking; when the skylight-protection program was paper-only; when the GC’s roof access controls broke down because of pace pressure.
These details establish liability under §240. They are routinely missed by lawyers who don’t read construction documents fluently.
Same categories as any New York personal injury case. Roofing cases often produce substantial damages because of the catastrophic nature of the injuries.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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.
