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Post by peteetongman on Aug 31, 2013 15:26:37 GMT -5
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Years before skyscrapers, when New York City's tallest building was still the 281-foot spire of Wall Street's historic Trinity Church, state lawmakers passed the Scaffold Law, which made property owners and contractors liable for most "gravity-related" injuries to workers on construction sites. As the years went by, and the buildings and dangers climbed ever higher, the 1885 law stayed on the books and allowed injured workers to collect big court verdicts for medical bills, pain and suffering. And it remained long after other states abandoned similar laws in favor of less costly federal workers' compensation insurance. Today, New York's Scaffold Law, protected by the state's powerful labor unions and trial lawyers, is the only one of its kind in the nation. It requires another layer of general liability insurance for contractors, and hits taxpayers by adding hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, to the cost of every public project. finance.yahoo.com/news/critics-time-ny-ends-1885-150250311.html
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