N.Y. Laws » CHAPTER General Business / ARTICLE Protection of Underground Facilities
New York Consolidated Laws

N.Y. General Business Law § 760 (2026)

Definitions

✓ text as retrieved May 2026 (this copy records no edition or section history)
Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section NY-LEGnysenate.gov Justiaon Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar 
§ 760. Definitions. When used in this article, the following terms
shall have the following meanings.
  1. "Person" means any individual, firm, corporation, association or
partnership, cooperative association, joint venture, joint stock
association, business trust, their lessees, trustees or receivers,
governmental unit or public authority whether or not incorporated.
  2. "Excavation" means an operation for the purpose of movement or
removal of earth, rock or other materials in or on the ground by use of
mechanized equipment or by blasting, and includes, but is not limited
to, auguring, backfilling, drilling, grading, plowing in, pulling in,
trenching and tunneling; provided, however, that the movement of earth
by tools manipulated only by human or animal power and the tilling of
soil for agricultural purposes shall not be deemed excavation.
  3. "Demolition" means the wrecking, razing, rending, moving or
removing of any structure.
  4. "Underground facilities" means pipelines, conduits, ducts, cables,
wires, manholes, vaults or other such facilities or their attachments,
which have been installed underground by an operator to provide services
or materials. Such term shall not include oil and gas production and
gathering pipeline systems used primarily to collect oil or gas
production from wells.
  5. "Excavator" means a person who is engaged in a trade or business
which includes the carrying out of excavation or demolition; provided,
however, that an individual employed by an excavator, and having no
supervisory authority, other than the routine direction of employees,
over an excavation or demolition, shall not be deemed an excavator for
the purposes of this article. In construing and enforcing the provisions
of this article, the act of any employee or agent of any excavator
acting within the scope of his or her official duties or employment
shall be deemed to be the act of such excavator.
  6. "Operator" means a person who operates an underground facility or
facilities to furnish any of the following services or materials:
electricity, gases, steam, liquid petroleum products, telephone or
telegraph communications, cable television, sewage removal, traffic
control systems, or water.
  7. "Damage" means an impact upon or removal of support from an
underground facility consequent to excavation or demolition which,
according to the operating practices of the operator, would necessitate
repair of such facility, destruction of any underground facility or its
protective coating, housing or other protective device, and impact with
or severance of an underground facility.
  8. "One-call notification system" means an organization among whose
purposes is establishing and carrying out procedures and programs to
protect underground facilities from damage due to excavation and
demolition including, but not limited to, receiving notices of intent to
perform excavation and demolition, and transmitting the notices to one
or more of its member operators of underground facilities in the
specified area.
  9. "Local government" means a county, town, city or village.
Notes of Decisions
Cited in 5 cases, 1992–2007 · leading case: Watral & Sons, Inc. v. OC Riverhead 58, LLC, 34 A.D.3d 560 (N.Y. App. Div. 2d Dep't 2006).
Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment
Watral & Sons, Inc. v. OC Riverhead 58, LLC, 34 A.D.3d 560 (N.Y. App. Div. 2d Dep't 2006). · cites it 2× “” “New York One Call” is apparently a reference to a “one-call notification system” established pursuant to General Business Law §§ 760 and 761 to protect “underground facilities” such as electric power cables from damage due to excavation and demolition work.”
Sutherland v. Hallen Constr. Co., 183 A.D.2d 887 (N.Y. App. Div. 2d Dep't 1992). “Although Hallen may have owed no common law duty of reasonable care to the plaintiff in this case, it clearly owed a duty to BUG, with whom it had contracted, to Con Ed, whose electrical lines it allegedly damaged, and to the owners of property in the area of the excavation (see…”
Verizon New York, Inc. v. Vill. of Athens, 43 A.D.3d 526 (N.Y. App. Div. 3d Dep't 2007). “Excavation work is governed by statutes and regulations designed to protect underground facilities and which set forth various procedures to be followed when engaging in such work (see General Business Law art 36; Public Service Law § 119-b; 16 NYCRR part 753).”
Jericho Water Dist. v. One Call Users Council, Inc., 37 A.D.3d 136 (N.Y. App. Div. 2d Dep't 2006). · cites it 2× “water” (General Business Law § 760 [6]). “Person” includes, inter alia, an “individual, firm, corporation” as well as a “governmental unit or public authority whether or not incorporated” (General Business Law § 760 [1]).”
Westchester Jt. Water Works v. Schmitt, 151 Misc. 2d 896 (N.Y. App. Term. 1992). “3), the purpose of which is to provide notice to all members of construction in a specified area (General Business Law § 760 [8]). However, it does not serve to provide the names of all operators having underground facilities and does not excuse the failure to call the central…”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.