The Journal News: Scaffold Law Driving up Costs on New TZB
This week, The Journal News published a letter to the editor written by LRANY’s Scott W. Hobson. This letter was in response to a September 17 article: Tappan Zee Bridge: State to fight EPA ruling on loan. Hobson points to the Scaffold Law as a means of decreasing costs for the new Tappan Zee Bridge project.
An excerpt:
“The recent news that New York State has been denied more than $481 million in federal loans for the construction of the new Tappan Zee Bridge is a timely reminder to take a hard look at the reasons infrastructure construction is so astoundingly expensive in New York.
One of the most significant cost drivers is the New York-only “Scaffold Law,” which imposes total and virtually inescapable liability on contractors and property owners in lawsuits for gravity-related construction accidents. Not surprisingly, this law is the single greatest source of litigation in New York, accounting for more than half of the highest legal settlements in 2012.”
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