Employer Liability

February 15, 2015

Fines in Highway Worker Deaths Point toward Broader Issues

A recent Associated Press article republished by The Oregonian reported that Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Division has fined a Salem company and the Oregon Department of Transportation for separate incidents that led to worker deaths. The deaths raise both possible Oregon wrongful death and employment liability law issues but, more immediately, leave open questions about the effectiveness of OSHA’s fines themselves.

According to the news agency, citing the East Oregonian newspaper, OSHA fined a Salem-based concrete company “$840 for not ensuring safe work conditions, which led to the death” of a 64-year old man employed by the company. “The company was installing rumble strips at the paving project on Interstate 84 west of Boardman when (he) was run over by a pickup towing equipment operated by another employee.”

The agency also fined the state transportation agency $3500 over the death of a highway maintenance crew member who was “paving Highway 320 when a dump truck backed up and ran over him.”

January 29, 2015

Oregon Employment Liability Questions Raised by Factory Fire

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The Oregonian is reporting that a fire this week at the Western Star truck factory on Swan Island caused over half a million dollars in damage and has slowed production at the facility. As details of the blaze emerge, it is also becoming apparent that the incident raises significant employment liability law issues and may also merit investigation as a possible Oregon industrial accident.

According to the newspaper, “the fire started when sparks created by an employee grinding near the plant’s paint booth ignited flammable liquids in the area. The fire bypassed the sprinkler system and spread to the ceiling.”

Here in Oregon an employment liability law claim can be brought against employers who fail to install or properly maintain safety equipment or who don’t give employees the safety training they need to carry out their jobs. Based on the media reports about this factory fire several of these conditions ought at least to be open to examination. Why were flammable materials anywhere near the place where an employee was doing a job that produces sparks? How was it that a fire moving along the ceiling failed to trigger the sprinkler system? Was there flammable residue on the ceiling itself that helped spread the fire and, if so, how did it get there? These questions raise issues related to both training and maintenance procedures at the plant and all need to be examined closely in the days and weeks to come.

July 15, 2013

Oregon Worker Dies in Industrial Accident – Plant’s Safety Record Open to Question

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Late last week The Oregonian carried a report about an industrial accident in Canby that raises serious Oregon employer liability law questions. According to the newspaper a 55-year old Silverton man died “after a 1,600-pound steel plate fell from a clamp” and landed on him.

Colleagues rushed to help the stricken man, lifting the plate and administering CPR, according to the newspaper. First responders initially called for an air ambulance “just minutes later, however, firefighters cancelled the helicopter and called for a medical examiner.” The state’s Occupational Safety and Health Division has opened an investigation into the incident, but one of its most worrisome aspects, based on what we currently know, is the fact that the steel-fabrication plant in question had been cited “for three ‘serious’ violations in the last few years. This trend is particularly troubling because it is relatively new. The plant in question has operated since the 1960s, but all three of its safety citations have come in the last five years.

This raises a number of potential Oregon employer liability law issues. Oregon Revised Statutes, section 654.010, requires employers to “furnish employment and a place of employment which are safe and healthful for employees.” To achieve this employers are required to “adopt and use such practices, means, methods, operations and processes as are reasonably necessary to render such employment and place of employment safe and healthful.” Simply put, this requires employers to do everything they reasonably can to keep a workplace safe, even for workers in potentially high-risk jobs.