Companies Avoid OSHA Penalties After Workplace Deaths

OSHA – A Death, A Debt And A Drawn-Out Process

Algo Escalante Cota had worked in the U.S. for less than a year when, during a roofing job, he crashed through a skylight and plummeted almost 20 feet to a concrete floor below.

OSHA logoThe fine for his death spent the next six years winding through a bureaucratic maze that led from Alabama to Washington, D.C., to a New York-based private collection agency, then back again.

In the end, the government collected $0.

Cota, a 39-year-old native of Mexico, found his way to Birmingham, Ala., where he worked for Tony Wright, owner of roofing contractor Integrity Building Services LLC. Wright found Cota and another worker at a congregating spot that Hispanic workers called “La Tiendita,” an OSHA report said.

“There Mr. Wright knew he could hire Hispanic workers which, compared to American workers, would work for lower wages and who were not trained on the safety and health hazards associated with roofing work,” an OSHA inspector wrote.

Wright brought the men with him on a hot June day in 2005 to repair a leaking roof at a door manufacturing facility in Montgomery, Ala.

Late in the afternoon of the second day on the job, Cota was lugging two five-gallon buckets of roof sealer when he stepped on a skylight. The fiberglass gave way, and he fell through to the factory floor.

The OSHA inspector cited Wright for failing to cover or guard the skylight and for failing to provide proper fall protection.

Wright had been an officer and co-owner of another business, Superior Roofing Contractors Inc., which had been cited repeatedly for violating fall protection rules.

In an interview with the Center, Wright said he negotiated with OSHA on the companyʼs behalf after at least one of those inspections. The company went out of business, Wright said, and he formed Integrity Building Services.

The scene of Cotaʼs accident troubled the inspector, records show. Arriving the day after the accident, he spotted pieces of plywood covering two of the skylights, including the one through which Cota fell. There were also stanchions — stands to mark off dangerous areas on the roof — and a poster board containing safety information for temporary workers.

Wright told the inspector the items had been at the scene before Cotaʼs accident, according to the OSHA report. But the other worker and the plantʼs owner said Wright hadnʼt brought the items until after the accident.

The inspector believed it was “an effort to deceive OSHA.”

In an interview, Wright acknowledged bringing the equipment to the scene after the accident, but insisted, “That was not to fool anybody.”

The plywood and stanchions were temporary protection to make sure no one fell in the hole left by Cotaʼs accident, he said. Asked why he brought the poster board, he said, “Thatʼs been a while. … I donʼt know.”

Wright contested all of the citations, which included one classified as “willful” – the most severe type OSHA can allege, signifying that the agency believes the employer intentionally violated the law or acted with “plain indifference” to it.

“The proper safety guidelines were in place,” Wright told the Center, noting that he had spray- painted lines around the skylights. “The proper training had been performed. Daily communication on safety was done. The workman ignored the safety that was in place for him.”

In 2006, the $48,750 penalty for Cotaʼs death began its trek through the system. The head of the local office that investigated the death urged  a Labor Department lawyer to pursue the full penalty to “achieve the appropriate deterrent effect.”

When the department filed its complaint in administrative court, Wright did not respond. Upholding the OSHA citations, a judge concluded Wright had acted “with disdain” for the courtʼs rules.

Wright told the Center he had limited resources and had to pick his battles, so he chose to fight what he viewed as the more serious threat, a lawsuit by Cotaʼs family.

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