Platform had open spots to allow vehicles on conveyor through but more precautions should have been taken to protect worker
An Ontario company has been found guilty of not providing guardrails on a platform from which a worker fell and was injured, despite the company’s argument the type of platform shouldn’t have guardrails and was exempt from such requirements.
Heip Ho was an employee with FCA Canada, a Brampton, Ont.-based manufacturer of motor vehicles, usually working at the underbody re-spot station (URS) on the plant’s assembly line. Ho’s duties involved inspecting and repairing welds on vehicle underbodies, which he performed for 15 years.
The URS station where Ho worked was a large platform 47 feet long and 26 feet wide, situated 42 inches above the plant floor. The platform had guardrails on all sides, except for a spot on each side where vehicles on the assembly line’s conveyor entered and exited the platform. At the spots where there was no guardrail, warning plates were attached to the open edges with safety mats on the floor below.
On July 12, 2012, Ho fell from a section of the platform where there was no guardrail. He landed on a safety mat on the floor, which activated an alarm that shut down the conveyor. He broke two ribs, fractured his eye socket, bruised his head, and broke two front teeth. He was able to fully recover from his injuries.
No one in the plant witnessed Ho’s fall and staff at the plant were only alerted when the alarm went off.
A Ministry of Labour inspector examined the site and ordered FCA to install guardrails along the open gaps of the URS station. FCA contested the order, claiming guardrails couldn’t be installed in those locations because the open spaces were necessary to allow vehicles on the conveyor to move into the URS station. The company suggested other measures it could take.
The Ministry agreed to a compliance plan in which guardrails would be extended from the stairs the led up to the platform, delineator posts put at the end of the handrail extension, yellow and black warning plates from the open edges moved, an awareness zone painted on the floor, one-way swing gates installed where vehicles enter the URS station but not where they exit, and slings installed near the edge of the platform for workers to use as temporary guardrails if they were working near the edge.
FCA was subsequently charged under the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act for failing to ensure a guardrail was in place at the open sides of the URS raised platform. The regulation under the act stipulated that guardrails must be in place at an open side of “a raised floor, mezzanine, balcony, gallery, landing, platform, walkway, stile, ramp or other surface.”
FCA argued the URS station didn’t require guardrails as the regulation stated that “barriers, warning signs or other safeguards for the protection of all workers in an area shall be used where vehicle or pedestrian traffic may endanger the safety of any worker.” Since it had warning plates, it already had one of the options in place. The company also claimed the URS station should be considered an “inverted pit” because URS stations used to be pits until they were changed to platforms out of concern that noxious gases could accumulate in them or workers could fall into them. The regulation made exceptions to the guardrail requirement for pits used on assembly lines and FCA had tried unsuccessfully to recommend updates to the regulation to reflect this. In addition, it said platforms with open widths were common in the industry and the compliance plan accepted by the Ministry of Labour didn’t include guardrails on the open sides.
The court found that at the time of the accident, the only measures in place to prevent a fall were warning plates at the edge. These were in no way equal to or greater protection than guardrails, as they couldn’t actually prevent a fall. In addition, the part of the regulation not requiring guardrails where there was moving traffic didn’t apply, as the vehicles under production were not motorized vehicles, said the court.
The court also found that the URS station was not a pit under the definition of the word, which was defined in the dictionary as a hole in the ground or a “sunken area in workshop floor for access to underside of motor vehicles.” While URS stations may have once been pits, the reality is that they were no longer pits and, since the act should be interpreted liberally to ensure its ability to protect workers, it would defeat the purpose of fall protection rules to consider the URS station platform as anything but a raised platform, said the court.
The court acknowledged that FCA conducted regular internal safety audits, supervisor audits, and other audits several times a year along with a weekly inspection by its joint health and safety committee and occupational health and safety training for managers and supervisors. It also noted that some safety measures were in place to help prevent falls from the URS station platform and injuries — warning plates and safety mats. However, falling from the open spaces along the sides of the platform was still a foreseeable hazard — the safety mats demonstrated as much — that FCA could have done more to prevent. The court found that FCA didn’t take every precaution reasonable to prevent Ho’s fall and therefore the company was guilty of the safety violation with which it had been charged.
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