Whether it is workers falling from a height or objects falling on them, New York state’s “scaffold law” applies. We agree that building owners should be responsible for the safety of workers on their premises, but this law goes way too far. And a decision last week by the Court of Appeals, which overturned two lower-level rulings in favor of the building owner, has just pushed it further.

In this and earlier decisions the Court has said the law wasn’t meant to be insurance, but that is essentially what it has become. If a worker is injured, it doesn’t matter whether he contributed to the accident through poor judgment, misuse of equipment or his own drunkenness. Nor does it matter whether the owner was even remotely at fault or could have done anything to prevent the accident; negligence on his part is assumed and a strict liability standard applied.

The Court had already established that a building owner cannot escape, or “delegate,” his responsibility to ensure a safe work environment by leasing the premises to a third party. But in this case, rather than escape his responsibility, the owner was trying to uphold it with a stipulation in the lease that required notification and written approval from the owner before workmen would be allowed.

Unfortunately the lease holder ignored the stipulation and a worker was injured when his portable hoist failed and an air conditioner he was trying to install fell on him. Without notification, the owner had no way of knowing who the worker was, what equipment he was using, or even that he was there. If the purpose of the law is to encourage worker safety, what more could the owner have done? What could he possibly have done differently?

We agree with a dissenting judge in this case, who said the result can only be justified by a “literal, mechanical reading of the statute.” Of course the Legislature is free to change the law, as the majority points out. But it’s not going to happen — despite the fact that this is the only such law in the nation and adds to the already-excessive cost of doing business here — because of the power of the unions and trial lawyers, one of whose members is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.