Court: Fire escape is same as scaffold
June 26, 2009 by Fred HosierPosted in: Falls, In this week's e-newsletter, Injuries, Latest News & Views, construction safety, new court decision
When is a fire escape not a fire escape? When it’s a scaffold, according to a New York Court.
Leonidas Gomez was performing demolition work on a building in New York City.
The building was already partially demolished, and he had to remove a window from the remaining structure.
The only way for him to do that was to stand on a fire escape.
While he was trying to remove the window, the fire escape detached from the building, and Gomez fell to the ground.
The worker sued for his injuries, claiming that the fire escape should be considered a scaffold under New York law.
The court agreed. It said the fact that a fire escape is usually a permanent structure and a scaffold is a temporary one didn’t matter in this case.
Since a scaffold couldn’t be erected on the partially demolished building, the fire escape acted as a scaffold and the law applied.
New York’s unique scaffold law requires building owners and general contractors to provide workers with proper scaffolds, hoists, harnesses and other appropriate PPE for use when working at elevations.
Cite: Gomez v. City of New York et al, New York Supreme Court, 6/11/09.
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Tags: demolition, fire escape, scaffold
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June 26th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Its probably a good thing only one person was injured by this. Imagine if the entire floor needed to use this emergency exit. Could have been much worse. Was his employer sued or the buildings owner?
June 29th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
“Frequent and regular inspections by a competent person” - was he trained in that particular scaffold as scaffolds have to be inspected by a competent person (additional training in hazards and compliance for subpart L)
June 29th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Had the partial Demolision caused the detachment, or was it deteriorated to begin with? What ever the reason, I think the worker bares some responsibility to check/inspect that his work area is safe, or at least have an inspection performed before using the fire escape/scaffold, or what ever you call it.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
How can any part of a partially demolished building be considered safe
July 6th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
If the worker was going to use the fire escape as a scaffold, he had the duty of care to change it into a scaffold buy securing the structure to the building, wearing a harness, etc. I can’t help but wonder why he would think a fire escape on a partially demolished building would be safe to stand on.