Company’s reliance on single employee for all safety matters backfired when employee was electrocuted
A Nova Scotia company must pay more than $40,000 in fines after leaving all its health and safety matters in the hands of an employee who electrocuted himself, the Nova Scotia Provincial Court has ruled.
Christopher Boyle, 38, was an electrician for R.D. Longard Services, a commercial and residential electrical services company. He was experienced in his work and the company considered him safety-conscious. Longard’s confidence in Boyle led it to rely on him to take care of jobs with proper safety precautions, as it had no formal safety program. The company made Boyle the safety officer and tasked him in December 2012 with developing a safety program for Longard employees. Boyle took courses to help with creating a manual that would make Longard becoming safety certified with the Nova Scotia Construction Safety Association (NSCSA).
At worksites, the company relied exclusively on Boyle to instruct employees and promote workplace safety.
In the spring of 2013, Longard contracted its services to a construction company called Suncoast Construction to install electrical service for a new retail space in a Halifax strip mall. At the time, Boyle was still working on the safety manual but no-one with the company had seen it yet.
The strip mall had a dedicated electrical room with a cabinet containing the electrical meters of all the mall tenants — the entire cabinet housed 600 volts of operating voltage. The new retail tenant in the mall required new feeder cable for the electrical cabinet.
Electrician electrocuted
On May 21, 2013, Boyle went to the strip mall with two other employees to finish tying down the new feeder cable. They took the face plate off the compartment that needed to be accessed, which was at the bottom of the electrical cabinet. Because of the compartment’s low position, Boyle had to lie on the floor on his back with his arms extended into the opening. He had to reach into the back of the cabinet to reach the cable, where the bus bars were also located. There was a large number of wires in the compartment, which Boyle had to move out of the way to access the connection.
Because it was during the day, the workers didn’t cut electrical service to the cabinet so existing mall tenants weren’t inconvenienced. This meant the bus bars in the back of the cabinet were energized.
Boyle was working when the other two employees saw his body suddenly go rigid and straight. When he didn’t respond to them saying his name, they pulled him out from under the electrical cabinet. Boyle was unresponsive, so they started CPR and called paramedics. However, he could not be revived.
The two other employees noticed Boyle’s knuckles on one hand were bloody, indicating he had come into contact with the bus bars.
A Nova Scotia Power wiring inspector was at the worksite the next day and observed that the switches for the electrical cabinet were on. The system was then de-energized by a utility crew from the outside. Another company later completed the electrical work on a Sunday so the electrical system could be shut down without troubling the mall tenants.
Suncoast, the construction company for whom R.D. Longard was performing the work, was surprised the work was being done during the day, as it had expected it to be handled after hours or on weekends so the power to the electrical cabinet could be cut. The contract stipulated that "the work of adjacent tenants shall not be interrupted at any time."
Longard was charged under the Nova Scotia Occupational Health and Safety Act for failing to take "every precaution reasonable in the circumstances to provide such information, instruction, or supervision" to ensure Boyle’s safety. The company was also charged under related regulations for failing as an employer "to ensure that an electrical installation was serviced, repaired or dismantled in accordance with the latest version of CSA standard CSA C22.1," which involved de-energizing a live electrical system before working on it.
Longard protested the charges, arguing it took every reasonable precaution in the circumstances by: employing qualified electricians — including Boyle — who knew the proper precautions to take; assigning Boyle the job knowing he was "highly experienced and safety conscious;" ensuring Boyle took certified safety courses; appointing Boyle the safety officer for the company; and assigning him the task of preparing a safety manual for the company. Longard said there was no way it could know Boyle wouldn’t follow proper safety procedure and cut the power to the electrical cabinet before working on it.
The court found that under the provincial health and safety act and regulations, Longard shared responsibility for health and safety with its employees. Boyle must also have been aware of the risk of doing the job without cutting the power, which turned out to be "a tragic, fatal miscalculation."
However, Boyle’s miscalculation did not absolve Longard of responsibility. The evidence showed the company took a "completely hands-off approach to Mr. Boyle’s work" and safety at the worksite, letting Boyle do everything. This was not acceptable under health and safety requirements, said the court.
Company relied on worker for all safety matters
The court found Longard didn’t institute polices or practices for workplace safety outside of relying on Boyle for everything. This was "far short of what the legislation requires," said the court.
"(Longard) had no safety program, no manual, no policies, nothing. It provided no training to its junior employees and in Mr. Boyle’s case, no safety training until the fall of 2012 when he and (the company’s owner) took the NSCSA courses," said the court. "In effect, Longard’s defence is that its compliance with its statutorily-mandated occupational health and safety obligations was satisfied by Chris Boyle’s safety-conscious practices and years of experience. That is simply not taking ‘every reasonable precaution.’"
The court also found that Longard didn’t even know when specifically Boyle and his colleagues were doing the job. The company claimed to be under the impression it would be done after hours as contemplated in the contract, and the power would be shut off. In addition to the safety violations, the court noted the job also was contrary to the Canadian Electrical Code (CEC) and, while it was "inexplicable" an experienced electrician wouldn’t follow the CEC, Longard should have followed up on the job to make sure proper precautions were being taken.
"Longard cannot be said to have done anything that constitutes due diligence," said the court. "There were no protective measures in place and their absence — with Longard simply relying on Mr. Boyles’ experience and safety-consciousness without more and not anticipating that he would work on a 600-volt system — is not due diligence."
The Crown asked for a $75,000 fine for Longard’s safety violations, but the court considered that the company — small to begin with — was no longer in operation, as without Boyle it couldn’t continue its business. In addition, Longard had no prior health and safety violations and it showed an awareness of the need for safety procedures when it asked Boyle to develop a safety manual and sent him to take the NSCSA courses. The court ordered Longard to pay a fine of $35,000 plus a $5,250 victim surcharge.
To make up for the reduced fine, the court also ordered the company "to make a series of presentations on the facts of the case" and "the workplace safety issues involved," totalling 150 hours. See R. v. R.D. Longard Services Ltd., 2015 NSPC 20 (N.S. Prov. Ct.).
