The owner and a manager of a roofing company in Santa Rosa, CA, will both go to jail after a pair of incidents involving employee falls through skylights. One employee died, the other was permanently disabled.
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.