Dive Brief:
- A California contractor and company foreman have been charged with misdemeanor violations of the state labor code in relation to a 2015 worker fatality, according to the Press Democrat. Their trial is scheduled for Jan. 24.
- Contractor Maggiora & Ghilotti was replacing a 40-foot, 7,800-pound, concrete-encased steel water pipe on a project in Petaluma, CA, when the pipe reportedly slid off a forklift, crushing and killing 28-year-old Jared Overfield.
- Both the company and foreman Mark Greving have pleaded not guilty and appealed the monetary fines, which could add up to $2.5 million. The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration said they did not take the necessary safety measures that could have prevented the accident, and the agency also fined Maggiora & Ghilotti $38,250.
Dive Insight:
This case is yet another example of prosecutors aiming to hold construction companies criminally responsible for job site deaths. While some claim that construction is a dangerous business and that criminally charging contractors for accidents sets a dangerous precedent, officials are ramping up efforts to prosecute contractors who skirt safety laws and put workers in danger.
In another California case, a crane operator was charged earlier this month with involuntary manslaughter in the death of his son and another worker. Cal-OSHA maintained that Mark Powell used an older crane in need of repairs to lift his son Marcus Powell and Glenn Hodgson 80 feet to repair another crane. The bucket the two were standing in broke loose from the crane, and both workers died from the fall.
Across the country in New York City, a local contractor was found guilty in August of criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter in the trench-collapse death of 22-year-old Carlos Moncayo. Moncayo was working in an unprotected excavation in April of 2015 when the walls collapsed and crushed him. Third parties allegedly warned supervisors from both general contractor Harco Construction and Sky Building Materials, Moncayo's employer, that the excavation was dangerous, but witnesses to the accident said those warnings went unheeded.
Sky foreman Wilmer Cueva was sentenced to three years in prison, and Harco supervisor Alfonso Prestia was sentenced to community service and probation. Harco was also fined $10,000 after the company refused the alternate sentence of paying for televised public safety ads.