High-wire act: Gilded age law evades reform

Annemarie Mitchell has lost plenty of business to crews from Vermont -- subcontractors hired to cross the border to work construction jobs in New York. Mitchell has lost business because she has to charge more to install timber frames in homes and buildings than her competitors in Vermont. The reason: Mitchell's Saratoga County company, Legacy Timber Frames, has higher insurance bills and follows New York’s Scaffold Law, which was enacted in the 1880s to protect workers building New York City…