In a significant move aimed at easing the financial burden on federal taxpayers, Congressman Nick Langworthy from Western New York has introduced a bill that promises to deliver substantial benefits to his constituents without costing them a dime.
Launched in May, Langworthy’s Infrastructure Expansion Act of 2025 is designed to exempt federally funded construction projects from New York State’s costly Scaffold Law, a unique standard that has made construction in the state notoriously expenses.
The Scaffold Law imposes an ‘absolute liability’ standard on employers and property owners for injuries that occur due to gravity-related incidents on construction sites. As a result, it requires these parties to demonstrate they had no responsibility for the incidents, placing New York in a league of its own as the only state with such a stringent liability requirement.
Originally intended to promote construction worker safety during the rise of America’s first skyscrapers in 1885, the law has been manipulated over time. Trial lawyers and judges have expanded the law’s interpretation, often resulting in judges and juries overlooking the injured workers’ own negligence.
This system has predictable consequences: Scaffold claims frequently lead to inflated settlement amounts, even in cases where workers have ignored safety protocols or were under the influence of alcohol during incidents. Higher settlements inevitably result in soaring insurance premiums for public and private construction projects across the state.
The economic impact of these rising insurance costs is profound. A 2020 estimate by the Citizens Budget Commission suggested that the Scaffold Law increases certain housing construction costs by as much as 7 percent. This burden limits not only residential development but also hampers essential infrastructure projects, including Gotham’s subway system modernization under the MTA’s latest capital plan.
Over the past decade, there was a glimmer of hope for reform when New York policymakers considered the implications of the Scaffold Law. A 2013 report from the Rockefeller Institute of Government estimated that the law alone contributed approximately $110 million annually to the Empire State’s insurance costs.
The research pointed to Illinois as a case study, noting that a similar liability standard was repealed in 1995, which coincided with improved workplace safety metrics.
Around the same time, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey—responsible for major bridges around New York City—unintentionally conducted an experiment. They discovered that bodily injury claims on the New York side of bridge construction projects were twice as high as those on the New Jersey side, highlighting the Scaffold Law’s detrimental financial effects.
In 2014, Albany seemed poised to take action when then-governor Andrew Cuomo’s Department of Financial Services sought insights from insurers about the law’s costs and its broader implications on the legal and regulatory environment. However, the inquiry’s findings were ultimately shelved, likely due to fears of confronting the law’s staunch defenders, including the trial lawyer lobby, which had significant influence over legislators like Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Despite Silver’s removal from office after a federal bribery scandal in 2015 and his death in 2022, resistance to reform persists. Much of this opposition is fueled by fears stoked by labor union officials, who fiercely protect the so-called ‘Scaffold Safety Law.’
Even members of Albany’s Republican party, who typically criticize ‘waste, fraud, and abuse,’ have avoided taking a clear stance on the Scaffold Law or the state’s tort climate. A recent 2024 study conducted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce emphasized the staggering impact of tort costs on the state’s economy, amounting to an extraordinary 2.6 percent of New York’s GDP. The Scaffold Law, thus, encapsulates the pressing need for sweeping reforms in New York’s legal landscape.
Langworthy’s bill aims to address this long-standing issue by prohibiting state courts from applying the absolute liability standard to construction projects that receive any form of federal financial assistance or fall under federal regulations. This legislative move would redirect claims related to such projects to federal courts, where a more reasonable standard of contributory negligence would be applied—an approach that evaluates the degree to which plaintiffs are responsible for their own injuries.
If enacted, Langworthy’s bill could significantly lower costs associated with a diverse range of federal projects, from transit enhancements and bridge repairs to flood control initiatives and housing developments. The hopeful outcome is that successful passage of the bill might encourage New York to consider abolishing the Scaffold Law entirely.
Langworthy’s Infrastructure Expansion Act could represent a pivotal opportunity to alleviate fiscal pressure on taxpayers at all levels and initiate a much-needed conversation about the liability costs that New York has long neglected.
Perhaps now is the time for Washington to step in and influence a change that is clearly overdue.
image source from：https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-infrastructure-expansion-act-construction-scaffold-law
