Authorities have charged Junior Lewis of Queens, NY, with one count each of mail fraud and conspiring to defraud OSHA. If convicted, Lewis, an authorized OSHA trainer, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on the mail fraud charge and five years on the conspiracy charge. He could also be fined up to $250,000 or twice the gross gain from the offense.

An undercover agent arranged on more than one occasion to buy multiple 30-hour OSHA training certification cards from Lewis. Authorities say Lewis has admitted he sold multiple certification cards to others in the construction industry over the past several months without requiring the workers to complete outreach training.

“Lewis potentially placed the well being of construction workers in jeopardy,” according to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

Lewis “dealt out phony training credentials as if they were playing cards … with no concern for safety of construction workers,” according to New York City Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn.

Police say Bruce Florence was working in the outdoor garden center at a Wal-Mart near Ft. Worth, TX, when customer William Kennedy tried walking out with a 26-inch TV he hadn’t paid for.

When Florence stepped in front of Kennedy, telling him electronics weren’t allowed in the garden center, Kennedy allegedly pushed Florence to the ground. Police say Kennedy fled in an SUV with a driver waiting inside.

Doctors say Florence suffered a head injury — bleeding in the brain — as a result of the fall.

He died six days later in the hospital.

Kennedy has been jailed on charges of theft at several stores.

Police say he could be charged with murder if the medical examiner determines that Florence died from the head injuries he suffered in the incident.

The company and David Weber, its EHS Manager, are charged with involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, and environmental violations.

Company President David Brown and plant manager Jay Black are charged with criminal endangering.

On June 21, 2008, wastewater was being improperly treated using sodium hydrosulfide at United Oil’s Middletown plant, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s office.

Employee Thomas Rogers was killed. The coroner’s report said he died from hydrogen sulfide poisoning.

Involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide carry penalties of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Criminal endangering carried a penalty of up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

An attorney for the company says it and its employees won’t plead guilty to the charges.

In a recent case, two employees of the same company sustained the same injuries. But the state’s Supreme Court said one could sue, and the other couldn’t.

Here’s what happened: A guy working for a recreational vehicle dealership was given a makeshift pre-fab “office” that was heated by a propane stove. He complained that the fumes from the stove made him sick, but the company ignored his complaints.

Then one day his girlfriend found him unconscious in the office. He was later diagnosed with numerous debilitating neurological impairments and declared permanently disabled.

A short time later, a new employee was hired to do the same job. He, too, complained that the fumes were making him sick. And he, too, was eventually found unconscious — this time by a co-worker. He was also eventually declared permanently disabled.

In fact, he died a short time later (the decision doesn’t say whether his death was related to the exposure).

When the first employee and the family of the second combined forces and sued, the company was able to get both cases dismissed by a district court, successfully invoking exclusive remedy.

But the state’s Supreme Court saw things differently. The district court was right, it said, to toss the first employee’s complaint. But the second employee, it said, might have had a point. Granted, the company hadn’t intentionally harmed him. But given all the circumstances, the company might have been reasonably certain that harm would occur. And that might be enough to overcome exclusive remedy.

Now, the case will be heard by a jury, if it isn’t settled first.

While noting that it was hard to sympathize with the company in this case, one of the high court justices nonetheless vehemently disagreed with the decision to let the employee’s case be heard, saying, “I believe the legislature intended Workers’ Compensation to be the exclusive remedy except … where the defendant’s conduct arose from specific intent rather than willfulness. In other words, an assault would allow a personal injury action. Gross negligence, such as we have here, would not.”

The case, Alexander v. Bozeman Motors, Inc., was decided by the Supreme Court of Montana.

What do you think? Does exclusive remedy unfairly protect even reprehensibly negligent employers, or does the dissenting justice have it right — unless an employer sets out to deliberately harm an employee, workers’ comp should always be the only remedy? Feel free to comment below.

Twenty-nine miners died in the explosion.

The Charleston Gazette reports that the investigation is looking into whether any criminal violations of mandatory health and safety standards were committed in connection with the explosion at the Massey Energy mine.

Violating safety and health standards could lead to misdemeanor criminal charges. Faking required mine safety records or other safety documents required by MSHA is a felony.

Mining disasters with multiple deaths in 1989, 1991 and 1992 led to criminal charges against mine operators and company officials. The four most recent coal mining disasters — those with five or more deaths in one incident — didn’t lead to criminal charges.

An investigation into the January 2006 fire that killed two miners resulted in Massey Energy’s Aracoma Coal subsidiary pleading guilty to 10 criminal violations and paying a $2.5 million criminal fine, as well as admitting that one of the violations resulted in the deaths of the two miners.

Do you think Massey should face criminal charges in this case? You can enter your comments in the box below.

Now, Maurice Buzzell, owner of Buzzell Tree Service in East Kingston, NH, has been ordered to receive arborist training, perform 100 hours of community service and make 10 presentations to students about workplace safety.

He’s to appear in front of the judge again in a year to show that he’s completed the terms of his suspended sentence.

Earlier this year, a jury found Buzzell guilty of the homicide charge and a reckless conduct charge in the death of 22-year-old Jon Paul LaVigueur.

Prosecutors recommended a 1- to 3-year prison term. The maximum he could have received was 7 years in jail.

But Judge Diane Nicolosi said, “Mr. Buzzell is not an uncaring man. I think he is grieving for this man (LaVigueur).”

In August 2007, LaVigueur was struck in the head and torso by parts of an 80-foot pine tree. He was part of a four-person team pulling down the tree. As it started to fall, LaVigueur ran in the same direction it fell.

Former employees testified they were taught by Buzzell not to move out of the way until a tree started to fall.

What do you think of the court’s sentence? Let us know in the Comments Box below.You can also take our Quick Poll on this topic on our home page.

Police say Frederick Poust III didn’t stop before attempting a left turn into a middle school complex in suburban Philadelphia. Poust allegedly turned directly into the path of a car. The car’s passenger was killed and its driver was seriously injured. None of the 45 children on the bus were injured. Poust wasn’t using his cell phone at the moment of the crash.

Poust faces vehicular homicide charges in addition to 46 counts of reckless endangerment. He’s being held in jail in lieu of $150,000 bail.

The school bus driver was involved in another fatal crash in 1999. Poust was dialing his cell phone when he ran a stop sign and broad-sided another car. A two-year-old girl in the car was killed. Poust was cited with careless driving and a stop sign violation and fined $50.

Poust’s employer, Student Transportation of America, said it checked his driving record, but the screening didn’t reveal the 1999 accident.

Bus camera footage retrieved from Poust’s bus shows he allegedly blew through 10 stop signs on the morning of the fatal accident.

The story calls into question how often school bus cameras are checked by the transportation companies or school districts using them.

Do you think the transportation company involved in this fatality should also be held responsible? How can transportation companies be sure their drivers don’t have previous violations, such as Poust’s, on their records? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

James Lomma, owner of New York Crane, and his former mechanic, Tibor Varganyi, have pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment charges in the deaths of two workers on May 30, 2008.

A weld on a crane’s turntable, that officials say New York Crane had done on the cheap in China, cracked apart, sending the machine’s boom and car plummeting 20 stories to the ground with the driver still in it. The operator and another worker on the ground were killed. A third worker was seriously injured.

The Manhattan District Attorney said Lomma was “motivated by profit,” to make the crane repair on the cheap using a Chinese company.

A lawyer for Lomma’s crane company said they’d fight the charges because no fewer than seven inspectors signed off on the refurbished crane part.

But prosecutors say even the Chinese company warned it wasn’t equipped to do the repair. An e-mail from the company says, “We are afraid the weld we had it not good.”

Nathan Shair, a 22-year-old university student, was fatally struck in the head by a spring-loaded lever from the machine on July 12, 2007.

Shair was a summer intern at XI Technologies of Calgary, Alberta.

He was one of three people operating the machine at the company’s stampede party.

Shair died in the hospital the next day.

XI is accused of failing to reasonably ensure the safety of a worker and failing to ensure that all equipment used on the work site could operate as it was intended.

Radar’s Rentals is charged with failing to ensure the equipment it supplied was working properly.

Both companies have pleaded not guilty.

They face a maximum penalty of $500,000 or six months in prison.

This is how the mechanical horse worked: When a rider kicked the machine, a calf would spring out from underneath the horse frame, allowing the rider to rope it.

News accounts don’t say whether Shair was required to work at the party as part of his internship. However, in an interview, the victim’s sister characterized her brother’s participation at the event as “helping out.”

Should the employer be held responsible for the intern’s death in this case? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

In the first year of the Obama administration, OSHA was busy handing out fines the likes of which hadn’t been seen for eight years. Here’s our rundown of 10 significant fines from the last 12 months, and what they mean for businesses:

1. OSHA issues largest fine ever: $87.4 million to BP. This fine demonstrates OSHA’s intent to check up on companies once they’ve made serious safety mistakes. The agency evaluated BP’s progress after the 2005 fire and explosion that killed 15 people and injured 170 more at its Texas City, TX refinery. OSHA issued 270 “notifications of failure to abate” and identified 439 new willful violations at the plant.
2. Two executives face prison time and huge fines in deaths of five workers. Phillipe Goutagny and James Thompson, executives with RPI Coating, each face 2.5 years in prison and a fine up to $1.25 million if convicted. On Oct. 2, 2007, vapor from a solvent ignited inside a tunnel at a hydroelectric plant in Colorado. Workers survived the blast but were overcome by smoke and fumes and died of asphyxiation. OSHA says it will work more closely with the Justice Department in cases like these to bring criminal charges against executives with penalties that include prison time.
3. OSHA wastes no time in using new per-employee citations, issues $1.2 million fine. G.S. Robbins & Co. of St. Louis, MO, was hit with 21 egregious willful citations for hazardous chemical handling. Each citation was on a per-instance basis. Even during this period of difficult economic recovery, OSHA won’t hesitate to use per-instance, per-employee fines to hike total fine amounts. This wasn’t the only instance in which OSHA used per-instance citations in 2009 (see item #7 below).
4. Company hit with $1.14 million fine following employee complaint. Are the big fines relegated only to incidents involving deaths or multiple serious injuries? Hardly. OSHA began a December 2008 inspection at Milk Specialties in Whitehall, WI, in response to an employee complaint. Willful citations were issued for the employer’s failure to comply with OSHA’s confined space and lockout/tagout regulations. OSHA is taking employee complaints seriously.
5. After two similar incidents, owner and manager go to jail. ANC Roofing of Santa Rosa, CA, owner Kenneth Alton pleaded no contest to failing to protect employees from a hazard. He was sentenced to nine months in jail and a $248,000 fine. Supervisor Robert McAfee pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor violation and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. On May 11, 2006, an ANC employee backed into an unguarded skylight and fell 21 feet to his death. Four months later, another ANC employee suffered major head trauma when he fell 19 feet from an unprotected skylight.
6. OSHA fines Wal-Mart $7,000 for worker trampling incident. A Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death by a crowd of 2,000 shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving in 2008. OSHA said Wal-Mart should have recognized that its employees were exposed to being crushed by the crowd based on previous experience. Wal-Mart fought the fine. OSHA used the General Duty Clause to issue the fine and has said it will use the GDC in similar situations where safety was compromised but a specific regulation wasn’t violated.
7. Company faces $1.09 million OSHA fine for 202 willful violations. OSHA didn’t really need anyone’s permission to start issuing per-instance fines (see item #3 above), but it got the go-ahead in the form of a decision from the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC). The appeals panel ruled OSHA properly cited Smalis Painting Co. on a per-employee basis for violations of the lead-in-construction regulations, in connection with a project near Pittsburgh, PA. OSHA monitored six Smalis employees for lead exposure. Based on that data, OSHA issued violations for all employees who would have been exposed to the same hazards.
8. OSHA is getting companies to agree to implement safety and health improvements above what’s required by regulations. A-1 Excavating of Bloomer, WI, agreed to make numerous changes in its work processes in exchange for lowering fines from almost $900,000 to $470,000. A-1 has to hire a full-time safety director, develop and implement site-specific safety and health plans for all major projects, identify all job sites to OSHA before work begins for the next three years, reduce the salary of job superintendents and project managers who fail to comply with OSHA requirements, and retain a third-party safety consultant.
9. Cintas agrees to pay $3 million in fines and to comply with other conditions. In some cases, it hasn’t been an either-or situation between fines and strict safety improvements. After a worker was killed when he fell onto an unguarded conveyor and was dragged into a 300-degree industrial dryer, Cintas agreed to the huge fine and to retain a team of independent experts to develop permanent fixes and review interim controls. Cintas also agreed to hire additional safety staff, conduct more frequent internal safety inspections, and establish new systems to examine employee complaints.
10. A construction company agrees to pay $750,000 in fines and cut the pay of unsafe supervisors. Broadway Concrete of New York, NY, agreed to reduce the salaries of senior job superintendents who failed to comply with job safety practices. Broadway also agreed to hire a full-time corporate safety director, develop a new corporate safety plan, and provide OSHA with information on major projects and access to all job sites for the next four years.

What do you think of OSHA’s recent enforcement tactics? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

On Aug. 15, 2009, 29-year-old Carl Beck fell 42 feet from a roof in Washington, PA, while laying shingles and died.

Beck worked for C.A. Franc Construction. OSHA issued the company $539,000 in fines. Company owner, Christopher Franc, also faces $250,000 and six months in prison in connection with his guilty plea to criminal charges of violating safety rules.

OSHA found the company had failed to provide any fall protection to its employees working on a pitched roof 40 feet above the ground. The agency issued 10 per-instance willful citations, one for each employee working on the roof without fall protection. An 11th citation says Frank failed to train a new employee.

The company has 15 days to respond to the OSHA citations. Christopher Franc will be sentenced June 18.

“Sixteen workers are killed a day in the United States because of reckless negligence on the part of their employers,” according to a new Web site.

The statement on the home page of 16deathsperday.com goes on to say, “Under existing laws, these employers get a slap on the wrist, or walk away scot-free. Meanwhile, workers who blow the whistle face threats and retaliation at the workplace.”

A five-minute video profiles two workplace fatalities where companies paid relatively small fines and didn’t face criminal prosecution.

The group’s message: Companies would rather pay low OSHA fines rather than spend more money on worker safety.

To change that, the Web site endorses passage of the Protecting America’s Workers Act. That bill would:

• allow OSHA to pursue criminal charges against a company for an employee’s death, including fines and up to 10 years in prison for owners and managers. Criminal penalties for serious bodily injury to an employee could include up to five years in prison.
• increase the civil penalty for an employee death from $50,000 to $250,000, with a minimum $25,000 fine for companies with 25 or fewer employees
• raise the maximum fines for willful and repeat citations to $120,000, and
• increase OSHA fines every four years for inflation.

What do you think of 16deathsperday.com’s message? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Xcel Energy and RPI Coating, Inc., each face fines up to $2.5 million and restitution, while RPI executives Philippe Goutagny and James Thompson each face 2.5 years in prison and a fine of up to $1.25 million.

On Oct. 2, 2007, vapor from a solvent ignited inside a tunnel at a Colorado hydroelectric plant. Workers inside survived initially, but were overcome by smoke and fumes and died from asphyxiation.

A federal indictment alleges the companies knew about the hazards in the tunnel and did nothing about them.

It also accuses RPI of trying to cover up safety shortfalls by altering, destroying or concealing the cameras, journals and cell phone of two of the dead workers.

The companies failed to get a permit for the work or assess the tunnel for hazards, according to the indictment.

OSHA proposed $845,100 in fines against RPI and $189,900 against Xcel.

The indictment can be downloaded here (PDF).

If the executives are found guilty in a trial, are jail time and fines warranted? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

The criminal fine is the maximum allowed. Tyson will also be on probation for one year.

On Oct. 10, 2003, at Tyson’s River Valley Animal Foods plant in Texarkana, AR, maintenance employee Jason Kelley was overcome by the fumes while repairing a leak from a hydrolyzer. Another employee and two emergency responders were hospitalized due to exposure during the rescue attempt.

Federal laws require employers to take steps that limit employee exposure to hazardous substances such as hydrogen sulfide gas.

The gas at the Tyson plant came from the decomposition of biological material such as poultry feathers.

The U.S. Department of Justice statement on the Tyson case is here.

An official says UCLA is appealing the citations so that they can’t be used against the university in any future proceeding, such as a lawsuit or criminal prosecution, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Lab assistant Sheri Sangji was transferring about 2 ounces of t-butyl lithium from one sealed container to another when a plastic syringe came apart in her hands.

The chemical ignited when it was exposed to air, setting her rubber gloves and synthetic sweater ablaze. She was burned over about half of her body and died 18 days later.

Part of the fine, $18,000, was for Sangji’s lack of a lab coat. UCLA was also fined for lack of proper employee training.

UCLA’s fear of further action against it is quite real. Cal-OSHA regularly refer workplace fatalities to district attorneys for review.

Sangji’s sister is calling for a DA investigation, and more than 1,300 people have signed an online petition calling for one.

Another possibility is a lawsuit by a labor union. Sangji’s family may be prevented from filing a lawsuit because of laws that make workers’ comp the exclusive remedy for relatives of a killed employee.

As part of its investigation, Cal-OSHA noted UCLA had not addressed deficiencies found in its own internal safety inspection two months before the fatal fire, including a finding that workers weren’t wearing lab coats.

Lesson for other companies: If your own internal safety audit finds deficiencies, not taking quick action can prove costly.

ANC roofing owner Kenneth Alton entered a no contest plea to the charge of failing to protect employees from a hazard. He was sentenced to nine months in jail and fined $248,000.

Company supervisor Robert McAfee plead no contest to a single misdemeanor violation and was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

Another former ANC owner will be sentenced in May.

On May 11, 2006, ANC employee Antonio Serrano backed into an unguarded skylight and fell 21 feet to his death while performing roofing work. Cal/OSHA fined ANC $14,400 for not providing a barrier to prevent a fall through a skylight opening in that incident.

Four months later on Sept. 21, 2006, ANC employee Jose Maya suffered major head trauma when he fell 19 feet from an unprotected skylight while working on a different roofing project. Cal/OSHA fined ANC $70,000 in that incident and referred the case to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office.

An investigation revealed that ANC continued to operate in flagrant violation of the California Labor Code after Serrano died in the first incident.

California law requires that employees have fall protection if they’re working within six feet of a skylight.

The San Joaquin County District Attorney has charged the former owner, safety director and a supervisor of Merced Farm Labor in the death of 17-year-old Maria Vasquez Jimenez. She was two months pregnant at the time of her death.

The three were also charged with one felony and five misdemeanor violations of state labor code.

Authorities say Vasquez Jimenez died May 14, 2008, because she lacked access to shade and water as she pruned grapevines for more than nine hours in nearly triple-digit heat.

After she collapsed, her supervisor recommended she rest in a hot van. Her fiance took her to a medical clinic two hours later.

Cal-OSHA fined Merced Farms $262,700 for violating eight workplace safety rules. The company later surrendered its license.

A judge has sentenced former Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Co. plant manager John Prisque to 70 months in federal prison in connection with safety and environmental violations at the facility.

Prisque, the company and three other managers were convicted of engaging in conspiracy to pollute the Delaware River, expose employees to dangerous conditions and impede federal investigations. The company and three other managers will be sentenced later this week according to the Express-Times.

Among Prisque’s safety violations, he:

• instructed an employee to lie to OSHA about a safety shield that had been changed after an incident in which a worker lost an eye and suffered a fractured skull when a saw blade broke
• concealed facts from OSHA about a forklift fatality
• instructed an injured worker to tell OSHA he didn’t break his leg in a forklift accident, and
• concealed from OSHA that an emergency shutdown device on the plant’s cement mixer had been bypassed, which led to the amputation of three of a worker’s fingers.

Prisque was also found guilty of allowing oil waste to be pumped into a storm drain that created an 8.5-mile slick on the Delaware River and of burning waste paint in the plant’s main furnace.

Atlantic States is a subsidiary of McWane, Inc.

After an investigation by New York City’s School Construction Authority, Larry Fontanez admitted selling between 50 and 60 fake OSHA 30 cards last summer, according to the New York Daily News.

An investigator posed as a worker looking for fake cards. He found them, complete with Fontanez’s signature, for $250 — half of the $500 for a 30-hour training course.

The card was purchased without the employee ever taking any classes.

Fontanez faces eight counts of criminal possession of a forged document. OSHA has suspended his license.