New York Crane Accident Lawyer

Crane Collapses and Dropped Loads Fall Under the Scaffold Law

If a crane dropped its load on you or came down on a New York job, the property owner and the general contractor are usually liable under Labor Law § 240(1).

New York courts treat a crane lifting a load as a hoist under that law, and your own mistakes do not reduce what the claim pays.

The claim runs alongside workers' compensation, which pays medical bills and part of your wages but nothing for pain and suffering.

The crane rental company can answer too, when it had authority over the lift or supplied a defective machine.

If you were walking or driving past when the crane failed, you have a negligence claim against the same companies.

We handle New York crane cases from our working office in Astoria.

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Why a Crane Counts as a Hoist Under Labor Law § 240(1)

Section 240(1) requires owners and contractors to furnish hoists, slings, blocks, pulleys, ropes, and other devices built, placed, and operated to give a worker proper protection.^[1] A crane making a lift is that kind of device, so when it drops what it carries or comes down itself, the statute is usually where the case starts.

The Second Department said so in Fitzsimmons v. City of New York, a Queens case from the construction of a City high school, where a crane toppled during the work. A crane lifting cargo is a hoist under the statute, the court held, and a hoist that falls and injures a worker violates it. The worker won judgment on liability against the City and the general contractor.^[2]

Dropped loads follow the same rule. The First Department granted partial summary judgment to an ironworker struck when a crane lifting a 25-by-25-foot steel screen failed and the screen fell about 20 feet.^[3] The test the Court of Appeals applies is whether the load fell while it was being hoisted or secured because a rope, sling, or other device failed or was missing, and our page on loads that fall while being hoisted or secured works through that test case by case.

Once a § 240(1) violation caused the injury, the owner and contractor answer for the full loss even if you made a mistake during the lift. The exception is a case where the worker's own conduct was the only cause, which our page on when an owner argues the worker alone caused the accident explains.

That rule turns most of your case toward what the injury cost and who pays it.

Which New York Claim Fits Each Kind of Crane Accident

The kind of failure decides which law carries the claim, and many crane cases plead more than one.

Section 241(6) matters even where § 240(1) applies, because it reaches injuries § 240(1) can miss, such as a load swinging at the same level as the worker. It also works differently. A jury can reduce a § 241(6) award for the worker's share of fault, which it cannot do under § 240(1).

The Subpart 23-8 Crane Rules Behind a Labor Law § 241(6) Claim

Section 241(6) makes owners and contractors answer for a violation of a specific Industrial Code rule, and Subpart 23-8 of the Code is the part written for mobile cranes, tower cranes, and derricks.^[4] Most of its rules have been in force since 1972. Our page on how a § 241(6) claim is built on an Industrial Code rule covers the statute itself.

Rules for Every Crane Under Section 23-8.1

The general section applies to every crane and derrick on the job. It requires firm footing under the machine, a load that is well secured and properly balanced, no sudden acceleration or deceleration of a moving load, and no load carried over a person.

The First Department has held the secured-and-balanced rule specific enough to support a § 241(6) claim, and in the same case said the jury should have been charged on the firm-footing rule and the tag-line rule as well.^[5] Other panels have granted judgment under the rule against sudden acceleration and let a claim under the over-the-head rule go forward. Courts have rejected the most general provision at the top of the section, so a claim rests on the subsections that state a concrete rule.

Rules for Mobile Cranes Under Section 23-8.2

Mobile cranes carry their own section, and its best-known rule requires tag lines or another restraint when a hoisted load could swing into a hazard. The First Department granted judgment under that rule to a worker standing on a flatbed truck when steel beams hoisted above him swung with no tag lines on them.^[6]

Rules for Tower Cranes and Derricks Under Sections 23-8.3 and 23-8.4

Tower cranes, the fixed cranes that climb with a high-rise, and derricks each have a section of their own. The hoist rules in Subpart 23-6 do not apply to cranes, and courts have dismissed § 241(6) claims pleaded under them, so a crane case and a hoist case draw on different parts of the Code. Our page on accidents on material hoists and construction elevators covers the hoist side.

The right subsection is what keeps the § 241(6) claim alive if the defense argues § 240(1) does not fit what happened.

When a Crane Rental Company Is Liable Under the Labor Law

Cranes on New York jobs are commonly rented, often with an operator, and owning the machine does not by itself make the rental company liable under the Labor Law.

In Mahoney v. Turner Construction, the First Department dismissed a crane company that had leased the machine and had no one directing the work, holding that even supplying the operator, without more, did not make it the owner's agent.^[7] The Second Department reached the same result for the rental company in Fitzsimmons, which showed the crane had no defect and that it neither supervised nor controlled the operator.

The answer changes when the crane company had authority over the lift. In Domino v. Professional Consulting, the Second Department kept a crane owner and operator in the case because it could not show it lacked authority over how the loads were rigged to the crane. A crane company can also owe in ordinary negligence for a defective or badly maintained machine, whether or not the Labor Law reaches it.

One lift can involve four companies at once: the one that owns the crane, the one that employs the operator, the one that rigged the load, and the one running the site. After an accident we need to sort out who was in charge and which companies failed to meet their obligations in a crane case.

If you work for the crane company, it is your employer, and workers' compensation is usually the only claim against it. The exception is a grave injury listed in Workers' Compensation Law § 11, which lets the owner or contractor you sue bring your employer into the case, and our page on the injuries the grave injury list covers explains which ones qualify.

Construction contracts commonly require crane and rigging contractors to name the owner and general contractor as additional insureds, which can put several carriers on the same loss. Our page on how indemnity and additional insured coverage pass a loss between contractors covers those contracts.

Each of those companies carries its own policy, and how many are in the case can decide how much coverage stands behind it.

How We Use a Crane's DOB Licenses and Wind Readings as Evidence

A crane in New York City works under a set of Department of Buildings approvals, licenses, and logs, and each one answers a question about the day it failed.

The approvals. The crane model needs a certificate of approval, the individual machine a certificate of operation, and the site a certificate of on-site inspection, obtained through a crane notice filed by a New York-licensed engineer.

The operator. The person at the controls needs a DOB hoisting machine operator license in Class A, B, or C, depending on the type of crane and the length of its boom.^[8]

The riggers. A licensed rigger, or someone under a licensed rigger's direct and continuing supervision, has to handle any hoisting or lowering of a suspended load on the outside of a building, and the erection or dismantling of a tower crane.^[9]

The wind. No pick may start, and a load already in the air has to be landed, once the wind passes the limit in the site's wind action plan, and that limit can be no higher than a 30-mile-per-hour three-second gust, or the manufacturer's figure if it is lower.^[10]

The machine's own record. City laws passed after the 2008 and 2016 collapses added event recorders, which capture what the crane was doing before it failed, a 25-year age limit on cranes, and wind measurement on site.

A missing license or an unlicensed rigger is evidence of negligence a jury can weigh, and the same facts often line up with a Subpart 23-8 violation for the § 241(6) claim.

Wind is the one condition on a crane job that the site records for itself. When the readings show the gusts over the limit and the load still in the air, the argument about whether the lift was safe is mostly over.

The Department does not count crane incidents on their own. They fall inside its mechanical construction equipment category, which also covers hoists, earthwork, and demolition equipment, and which recorded those 2024 figures across the five boroughs.^[11] In March 2008 a tower crane collapsed during a jump on East 51st Street and killed seven people, and the City's Department of Investigation traced it to the rigging.

For you, these records can show the lift should never have started, and because the companies and the City hold them, they have to be requested in writing.

Pedestrians and Drivers Hit by a Crane Load in New York City

The Labor Law protects people working on the job, so a pedestrian, a driver, or a neighbor hit by a crane or something it was carrying brings a negligence claim instead. Our page on claims by people hurt at a site they were not working on explains where that line falls.

The defendants are usually the same companies a worker would sue: the property owner, the general contractor, and the crane and rigging contractors. A violation of the City's crane rules is evidence of negligence, and when a load falls from a crane onto a public street, the fall itself can let a jury infer negligence under the doctrine called res ipsa loquitur. Evidence of wind can defeat that inference. In Tora v. GVP AG, the First Department reversed summary judgment for a pedestrian hit by part of a sidewalk shed, because evidence of a sudden gust left the question for trial.

In February 2016, a crawler crane being lowered because of high wind fell onto Worth Street in Lower Manhattan and killed a man walking below it. The City restricted crawler cranes in high wind within days, and a Department of Buildings order that June added on-site wind meters and a lift director.^[12]

If the crane was working a City project, a claim against the City or another public owner needs a notice of claim within 90 days, as the deadline section below explains.

A person hurt on the street rarely knows which company ran the crane, and the City's crane filings name the companies involved.

How Much Is a New York Crane Accident Case Worth?

A crane case is valued on the injury, and crane injuries are among the most severe on a construction site: crush injuries, amputations, spinal cord and brain injuries, and deaths.

New York places no cap on pain and suffering in a construction injury case, and the 2026 limits on certain motor vehicle claims do not reach the Labor Law. What drives the number:

• The injury, the surgeries, the future care, and whether you can go back to the trade
• Lost earnings at your real rate, including union wages, benefits, and overtime
• Liability under § 240(1), which keeps your share of fault out of the calculation
• Every company and policy behind the lift, including the crane and rigging contractors
• For a family, the economic losses New York's wrongful death law allows, plus the claim for conscious pain before death

Punitive damages are rare, but crane cases have produced them. In the litigation over the May 2008 collapse on East 91st Street, which killed the operator and a worker when a weld on a replacement turntable bearing failed, the Appellate Division upheld liability and punitive damages against the crane's owner while reducing the awards.^[13]

The workers' compensation carrier is repaid from the recovery for what it paid, less its share of the legal costs, and our page on how the comp carrier is repaid from a Labor Law case works through the math. For ranges by injury, see our page on how construction injury settlements are valued.

For a worker who cannot return to the trade, lost future earnings can be the largest part of the case.

How Long After a Crane Accident Can a New York Worker Sue?

Most crane injury lawsuits must be filed within three years of the accident.^[14] Other clocks run faster:

• Two years from the date of death for a wrongful death claim, covered on our page on death claims for families of New York workers
• 90 days to file a notice of claim, and one year and 90 days to sue, when the City, NYCHA, or another public body owns the project
• 30 days to give your employer written notice of the injury, and two years to file the workers' compensation claim

Our page on the notice a public owner must receive within 90 days covers what the notice has to say and who receives it.

On a public project, a missed 90-day notice can bar the claim against the public owner even when the Labor Law case is strong.