Worker fell from stepladder
Ontario employer 2079608 Ontario Inc. has been fined $125,000 after one of its workers was fatally injured in the workplace.
Following a guilty plea in the Ontario Court of Justice in Woodstock, the employer was also tasked to pay a 25 per cent surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
The incident happened on Aug. 9, 2022, when two workers were cleaning a vehicle in the detailing bay of the company’s automotive shop.
One of the workers left to do another job in a different area while the other continued to work on the vehicle alone.
The worker that remained was drying the roof of the vehicle with a chamois while standing on the top cap of a stepladder.
Then, the worker attempted to get down from the stepladder. The worker, however, slipped and fell to the concrete floor 33.5 inches below. The worker sustained fatal injuries.
In its investigation, the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development investigation found that the stepladder was an inadequate height to be safely used by the worker to dry the roof of the vehicle, which created a fall hazard. Instead, the work could have been done safely with a ladder or platform designed to be used at the required height.
“The company failed to take the reasonable precautions of ensuring that the worker worked from a ladder or platform designed to be used at the required working height, contrary to section 25(2)(h) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act,” said the Ontario government.
