When someone is hurt on a New York property, the injured turns to the landlord or property owner for compensation. Often they point to a clause buried in a lease and argue that they are not responsible and instead the tenant is responsible. That clause usually says something like "tenant assumes all risk" or "landlord shall not be liable for any damage or injury." In most cases involving the landlord's negligence, New York General Obligations Law (GOB) § 5-321 renders that language legally meaningless. The statute reflects a deliberate legislative choice: landlords cannot use a contract to insulate themselves from the consequences of its own negligence toward the people who live on, visit, or work at their property. Understanding how that rule operates is essential for any tenant, guest, or worker who was injured and is now hearing from the owner's insurance company that the lease somehow bars the claim.
In This Article
Understanding GOB § 5-321
GOB § 5-321 governs leases of real property in New York State and the contracts collateral to them. That includes residential apartment leases, house rentals, commercial office and retail leases, industrial and warehouse leases, ground leases. It also encompasses side agreements negotiated with a lease, such as occupancy agreements, riders, and license arrangements granted together with possession. If the writing governs the use and occupancy of real property in exchange for rent or similar consideration, it also falls within the statute's reach.
The identity of the parties matters because it determines who can be held responsible for an injury. The landlord or property owner is the entity that owns the building and typically controls the common areas. A property management company acting as the owner's agent can also be liable for negligent maintenance. The tenant is the party who holds possession under the lease; the tenant's family members, employees, guests, delivery personnel, and invited contractors all have standing to sue the owner if they are injured by the owner's negligence on the property. Visitors and workers injured on the premises are affected by this statute because the landlord's liability to them is often what the lease clause is trying to block.
The language this statute addresses takes many forms in real leases. Some versions are blanket releases ("Tenant releases and discharges Landlord from any liability arising out of Tenant's occupancy"). Some are framed as condition-of-premises acknowledgments ("Tenant accepts the premises in their present condition and assumes all responsibility for injuries sustained thereon"). Others appear inside a rules-and- regulations rider, an indemnification paragraph, or a hazard- specific addendum addressing swimming pools, rooftop access, or gym facilities. The clause is almost never labeled "exculpatory"; it is folded into the ordinary prose of the lease, which is part of why injured tenants and guests are usually unaware it exists until the day they need to rely on the landlord being accountable.
What Exculpatory Clauses Mean for Injured People
An exculpatory clause is a contract provision that tries to eliminate one party's liability in advance, before any injury occurs. In a lease, its practical function is to give the landlord a permanent defense against future injury claims brought by anyone connected to the property, whether a tenant, a guest, a delivery worker, or a contractor.
Injured people are almost always blindsided by these clauses. The signatures on a residential lease are not the product of negotiation between sophisticated lawyers; they are the product of a prospective tenant handing over a deposit to get the keys. Nobody reads that document expecting to find language that forfeits their right to be compensated after a staircase collapse or an elevator failure, and the law recognizes that reality rather than treating such provisions as ordinary bargained-for terms.
An exculpatory clause is not the same as an indemnification clause, and the difference matters when money is at stake. An exculpatory clause tries to extinguish the landlord's liability to the injured person directly. An indemnification clause instead requires one party, usually the tenant, to pay the landlord back for losses the landlord suffers, including liability paid to an injured third party. Both can drain the available funds to an injured plaintiff. An exculpatory clause blocks the claim at the door; an indemnification clause lets the claim through but funnels the cost back onto the tenant who signed the lease, who may be the injured person's employer, landlord-above, or roommate. A careful analysis of a lease after an injury must identify both kinds of provisions because either can reshape who pays in the end.
Landlord Negligence Cannot Be Contracted Away Under GOB § 5-321
GOB § 5-321 states that any covenant, agreement, or understanding in connection with a lease of real property that purports to exempt the lessor from liability for damages resulting from its own negligence, or the negligence of its agents and employees, in the operation or maintenance of the premises is void as against public policy and wholly unenforceable. The text is intentionally categorical. The legislature did not leave room for a better drafted version of the same clause to survive. If the effect of the language is to shield the landlord from the consequences of its own negligence toward a person on the property, the clause fails, regardless of how it is worded.
Courts applying this rule scrutinize substance over form. Broadly worded waivers such as "tenant assumes all risk of injury on the premises" or "landlord shall not be liable for any damage or injury however caused" cannot bar a negligence claim for injuries caused by the landlord's failure to maintain a staircase, fix a dangerous lobby floor, repair a defective elevator, replace a burned-out hallway light, or address a known structural hazard. The same is true of language that purports to make the tenant "solely responsible" for all injuries. When the underlying injury was caused by something the landlord was obligated to keep safe, the waiver does not operate.
The protection is at its strongest in the residential context. Residential tenants are presumed to be in an unequal bargaining position, and New York courts treat that imbalance as central to why the statute exists. Purely commercial leases between experienced business parties are evaluated with more deference to the parties' negotiated allocation of risk. The practical consequence for an injured person is that the setting of the lease, not just its words, drives how hard the landlord can push its waiver.
When Liability Waivers May Still Be Enforceable
Some exculpatory provisions in commercial leases do survive, and the practical effect for an injured person is usually a shift in which insurance policy pays the claim rather than a loss of the claim itself. When sophisticated commercial parties negotiate a lease in which the tenant agrees to procure liability insurance that names the landlord as an additional insured, New York courts have permitted the coverage-based allocation to function even though a strict reading of the exculpatory language would not. An injured worker on a commercial premises will often find that the judgment or settlement is paid by the tenant-employer's commercial general liability carrier rather than the landlord's policy, with the parties' lease terms dictating that flow of money.
The distinction between landlord negligence and tenant negligence is also central. If a worker is injured by a defective freight elevator the landlord failed to maintain, the landlord's negligence is the direct cause, and the injured worker's claim against the landlord proceeds. If the same worker is injured because the tenant-employer stacked equipment unsafely, the tenant is the negligent actor, and the worker's remedies run through workers' compensation and any available third-party claims. When both contributed, comparative fault principles apportion responsibility among the defendants at trial, and the landlord cannot use an otherwise void clause to zero out its share.
A few concrete examples make the line clearer. A clause stating "Landlord shall not be liable for any injury caused by Landlord's negligent maintenance of the premises" is void as applied to an injured tenant or visitor; it purports to absolve the landlord of exactly the conduct the statute refuses to let owners contract away. A clause stating "Tenant shall maintain commercial general liability insurance of $2 million naming Landlord as additional insured" is enforceable and shifts who pays without erasing the injured worker's rights. A clause stating "Tenant releases Landlord from all liability and waives subrogation by Tenant's insurer" raises both issues at once: the release of direct liability is void under the statute in its negligence scope, while the waiver-of-subrogation piece controls whether the tenant's insurer can recover from the landlord after paying the tenant's worker, which is a separate question from the injured person's right to be paid at all.
How Clauses Are Used Against Injured People Injured People
The most aggressive lease language tends to appear in two settings: residential leases used by large property management companies that reuse the same form in thousands of buildings, and commercial leases governing retail, office, and industrial spaces. Landlords and their insurers use overbroad language tactically. They deny claims at the notification stage, citing the lease as if it were dispositive, knowing that many unrepresented tenants accept the denial and give up. They delay by demanding extensive documentation before acknowledging any duty to pay. They reduce settlement offers by treating the clause as creating doubt about liability, even when the statute forecloses that doubt. An injured person who does not understand that the clause is void may accept a fraction of the actual value of the claim.
New York State courts respond to overbroad lease provisions in several ways. In the cleanest cases, the court voids the offending clause in its entirety, and the injured person recovers as though the language never existed. In other cases, the court applies a severability analysis and strikes the unenforceable negligence waiver while leaving narrower, lawful portions of the clause standing, such as language addressing property loss rather than bodily injury. In still other cases, particularly between sophisticated commercial parties, the court preserves the insurance procurement structure while rejecting any attempt to use the clause to defeat a negligence claim outright. The best outcome for the injured party is usually complete voidance; the worst is a hybrid ruling that preserves the owner's ability to push the cost onto another party's insurance without compromising the injured person's recovery.
For an injured worker or visitor, the "additional insured" endorsement is often the single most important document in the file. It controls which carrier defends, how much limit is available, and who signs the settlement check. A waiver-of-subrogation provision can further cap the practical recovery ceiling by blocking the paying insurer from collecting back from the landlord. Whether the waiver itself is facially void matters far less than whether the required coverage was procured and reaches this injury.
Landmark New York Cases Under GOB § 5-321
Hogeland v. Sibley, Lindsay & Curr
Hogeland is the Court of Appeals' foundational decision explaining why not every lease clause that looks like it shifts the cost of a landlord's negligence runs afoul of GOB § 5-321. A customer leaving a department store tripped on a planter at the store's entrance. The shopping center owner and the department store had a lengthy negotiated lease under which the tenant agreed to indemnify the landlord and to procure public liability insurance naming the landlord as an insured. The Court held that the statute did not void the indemnity because the parties were not exempting the landlord from liability to the injured customer; they were allocating the cost of insurance between themselves. The injured plaintiff's right to recover from the negligent owner was untouched. The practical takeaway for an injured person is that commercial lease indemnity and insurance clauses reshape who ultimately writes the check, not whether the injured person can collect; the claim proceeds, and the attorney's job is to follow the coverage.
Great Northern v. Interior Construction
Great Northern is the Court of Appeals' modern reaffirmation of the Hogeland framework in a sophisticated commercial setting. A property damage claim arose when a sprinkler malfunctioned during renovation work at a tenant's leased premises, and the resulting subrogation action required the Court to decide whether the lease's indemnification clause, paired with an insurance procurement provision, violated GOB § 5-321. The Court held it did not: where a lessor and lessee freely negotiate an arrangement that uses insurance to allocate risk to third-party claimants between themselves, the statute does not interfere, and the Court expressly declined to overrule Hogeland. For an injured person in a commercial property setting, Great Northern confirms that the critical questions are whether the required coverage was actually put in place, whether the policy responds to the specific injury, and which carrier is on the risk. The landlord's lease language rarely decides the claim on its own; the insurance layered on top of it usually does.
Tushaj v. Elm Management Associates (2002)
Tushaj addresses a question injured tenants and visitors frequently face after a building accident: who, in addition to the record owner, can be sued? The First Department held that a property management company whose duties included making periodic inspections and keeping the building in good repair could be held directly liable in tort for negligent maintenance. That matters under GOB § 5-321 because the statute voids waivers of liability for the landlord and for its "agents, servants or employees," and Tushaj confirms that a management company with the authority to inspect and repair is exactly the kind of agent whose negligence the statute refuses to let anyone contract around. For an injured tenant, guest, or worker, the practical takeaway is straightforward: the suit is not limited to whatever entity holds title to the building. A management company that exercised control over maintenance is a proper defendant on its own, with its own insurance and its own exposure.
Contact Sternberg Injury Law Firm
Understanding how GOB § 5-321 operates is critical for any injured tenant, visitor, or worker who has been told that a lease clause bars their claim. The statute does meaningful work, but it does not apply itself. It requires an attorney who can identify the relevant language, situate the injury within the negligence framework the statute protects, and navigate the insurance architecture that ultimately determines what the injured person recovers.
The personal injury attorneys at Sternberg Injury Law Firm have handled premises liability matters arising in both residential properties and commercial settings such as retail stores, and routinely address the types of exculpatory and indemnification provisions this statute is intended to invalidate. We can evaluate the lease, identify how the injury fits into the statutory framework, locate the applicable insurance coverage, and press the claim through to resolution. We offer free consultation at a location of your convenience. You can meet us at our office or we can come to you Our team can converse in many languages including Creole, , Hindi, Russian, Spanish, Urdu, Uzbek, and Yiddish.
GOB § 5-321 Frequently Asked Questions
Not for the landlord's own negligence. GOB § 5-321 voids any lease clause that tries to exempt a landlord from liability for injuries caused by its own negligent acts or omissions on the property. If a landlord points to a waiver in your lease after a slip and fall, staircase collapse, or similar injury, that clause is almost certainly unenforceable in a residential setting and must be analyzed carefully in a commercial one.
The statute declares any agreement that purports to relieve a landlord from liability for its own negligence void as against public policy. It does not matter how clearly the clause is worded. If the effect is to protect the landlord from the consequences of its own negligent conduct toward people on the property, the clause cannot be enforced to bar a personal injury claim.
Yes, but courts apply it with more nuance. Between sophisticated commercial parties who have negotiated the lease and allocated risk through insurance, an exculpatory clause paired with procured insurance coverage may be enforced as a risk-shifting device rather than a shield against negligence. For an injured worker or visitor, that usually means the recovery comes from the insurance the parties agreed to procure rather than directly from the landlord.
Signing such a clause does not waive your right to sue for injuries caused by the landlord's negligence. GOB § 5-321 operates regardless of what the tenant signed. Residential tenants and their guests are fully protected, and even commercial tenants retain rights when the injury was caused by the landlord's own negligent maintenance or operation of the premises.
Insurance is often where the real dispute lies. Many commercial leases require the tenant to name the landlord as an additional insured and to waive subrogation against the landlord. Those provisions determine which policy responds to an injury claim and how much coverage is available, which in turn shapes what an injured person can practically recover even when a liability waiver is otherwise void under § 5-321.