Section 240. Scaffolding and other devices for use of employees

1.  All
  contractors and owners and  their  agents,  except  owners  of  one  and
  two-family  dwellings  who contract for but do not direct or control the
  work,  in  the  erection,  demolition,  repairing,  altering,  painting,
  cleaning  or pointing of a building or structure shall furnish or erect,
  or cause to be furnished or erected for the performance of  such  labor,
  scaffolding,  hoists,  stays, ladders, slings, hangers, blocks, pulleys,
  braces, irons, ropes, and other devices which shall be  so  constructed,
  placed  and  operated  as  to  give  proper  protection  to  a person so
  employed.
    No liability pursuant to this subdivision for the failure  to  provide
  protection  to  a  person  so  employed shall be imposed on professional
  engineers as provided for in  article  one  hundred  forty-five  of  the
  education  law,  architects  as  provided  for  in  article  one hundred
  forty-seven of such law or  landscape  architects  as  provided  for  in
  article one hundred forty-eight of such law who do not direct or control
  the  work  for activities other than planning and design. This exception
  shall not diminish or extinguish any liability of professional engineers
  or architects or landscape architects arising under the  common  law  or
  any other provision of law.
    2.  Scaffolding  or  staging  more than twenty feet from the ground or
  floor, swung or suspended from  an  overhead  support  or  erected  with
  stationary  supports, except scaffolding wholly within the interior of a
  building and covering the entire floor space of any room therein,  shall
  have  a  safety  rail  of  suitable  material properly attached, bolted,
  braced or otherwise secured, rising at least  thirty-four  inches  above
  the  floor or main portions of such scaffolding or staging and extending
  along the entire length of the outside and the ends thereof,  with  only
  such  openings  as  may be necessary for the delivery of materials. Such
  scaffolding or staging shall be  so  fastened  as  to  prevent  it  from
  swaying from the building or structure.
    3.  All  scaffolding shall be so constructed as to bear four times the
  maximum weight required to be dependent therefrom or placed thereon when
  in use.