Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Conviction Appealed in Worker Death

Sunshine Village, a ski and snowboard facility, (Alberta, Canada) is appealing an occupational health and safety conviction for failing to ensure the safety of a worker who died as reported in the Canadian OH&S News. 

 

The trial judge's summary noted 25-year-old mechanic's helper died days after suffering massive head injuries. The man was sitting on the upper work platform of a work chair approaching a terminal building at the resort. He suffered head injuries when the platform's foldable access stairs broke upon entering the terminal.

 

The judge pointed out "the upper clearance for the work chair . . . did not allow for a person to be seated on the upper work platform." The judge determined the accident was caused by momentary inattentiveness and carelessness by three of the company's employees, including the injured mechanic.

 

Information from Alberta Employment and Immigration confirmed Sunshine Village Corp. was fined $5,000 (plus a 15% victim surcharge) and ordered to pay an additional $250,000 to the ski hill operations and management program at Selkirk College, a multi-campus community college in British Columbia.

 

In its appeal, Sunshine Village claims the trial judge "erred in law by failing to address the principle of foreseeability," arguing there was no failure to comply with either a legislative or industry standard and the other two workers involved testified they had been trained properly. The trial judge  maintains "the accused's liability arises from the lack of assistance by visual aids or special procedures in place to remind the employees when care is required."

 

A company spokesperson insisted that the incident was not reasonably foreseeable.

 

"With the benefit of hindsight you can look back and imagine how you could have foreseen it," he explained. "But we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. This was something that had never happened before at Sunshine and, to our knowledge, hasn't happened with this particular brand of lift anywhere in North America."

 

He added it was not foreseeable that the three employees would be simultaneously inattentive at the precise moment of the accident, as the judge ruled. "[They were] trained, experienced [and] had done this operation a number of times, including several times that day," he noted, adding the company maintains the absence of signage was not responsible for this incident. In the meantime, however, Sunshine Village has reportedly invoked added precautions to minimize the possibility of future accidents. (workersxzcompxzkit)

 

Although the company is willing to go beyond mandated legislation in order to protect its workers, the company spokesperson maintains these types of incidents are unpredictable and often unforeseeable. "I think it would be very hard, unless you were just engaging in a what-if exercise, to actually imagine this sort of accident happening," he commented.