Ayton contractor, supervisor enter guilty pleas relating to 2020 site fall
A workplace injury at a construction site in Ayton has led to a fine of $75,000 for a contractor.
Domm Construction, which builds in the agricultural, commercial, municipal and residential sectors, pled guilty to charges in provincial offences court stemming from a 2020 incident. Shawn Weltz, the supervisor who was present at the location and time of the incident, had previously pled guilty to the charges.
On October 29, 2020, four workers employed by Domm Construction Ltd. were working on the construction of a new barn.
The workers were installing ‘girts’ atop the roof trusses of the barn. Girts are 16-foot long, two-inch by four-inch timbers nailed to the inclined top timbers of roof trusses.
One worker went down the incline to get additional girts. On the way back up, the worker stepped on the end of a girt that had been set in place but not yet nailed in. The unsecured girt slid down the inclined timber of the truss. The sudden, unexpected movement caused the worker to fall approximately 16 feet to the concrete floor of the barn and suffer a critical injury.
A Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development investigation determined that Domm Construction Ltd. had not established or trained workers on a safe procedure for installing girts.
In addition, despite being exposed to a fall of more than three metres, the injured worker was not protected by a method of fall protection. The workers had personal fall protection harnesses and lanyards at the job site, but none of them were wearing the equipment, and there were no lifelines nor retractable lifelines set up on the roof.
The workers had received formal Working at Heights Training, as required under the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA), but no site or task-specific training was provided by the employer.
As a result the investigation found that Domm Construction Ltd. failed as an employer to take the reasonable precaution of developing and/or implementing a safe work procedure for installing girts, contrary to section 25(2)(h) of the OHSA.
Weltz, meanwhile, was judged to have failed as a supervisor to ensure that workers were protected by a method of fall protection as required by section 26.1(2) of Ontario Regulation 213/91, as amended, contrary to section 27(1)(a) of the OHSA.