Maple Leaf Foods fined $110,000 after worker falls with equipment
October 6, 2017 | By MRO Magazine
Woodstock, ON – Maple Leaf Foods Inc./Les Aliments Maple Leaf Inc. pleaded guilty and was fined $110,000 after a worker was injured in a fall from a loading dock.
The incident took place at the company’s facility located at 149 Brock Street in Thamesford on September 4, 2015.
An employee for a rental company arrived on site to service a one-person lift called a Genie GR-12 which is used for warehousing, transporting and general maintenance. A truck was parked on a dock to move the lift and take it away. The truck had a roll-off system and the dock was equipped with a power dock leveler.
A Maple Leaf employee was asked to load the Genie lift onto the truck using an electric fork truck. The employee elevated the Genie from inside the workplace and drove forward, toward the deck.
When the fork truck was passing between the power loading dock and the deck, the truck moved away from the power loading dock and travelled down the concrete ramp outside of the dock. The truck then struck a low concrete wall and stopped. The cab of the truck was unattended.
The fork truck, the Genie and the Maple Leaf employee fell from the power loading dock to the ground below. The Maple Leaf employee suffered injuries.
During a subsequent inspection by the Ministry of Labour, it was learned that no one placed blocks at the wheels of the truck to prevent movement and no one from Maple Leaf asked or ensured that the wheels of the truck were blocked as needed.
Maple Leaf pleaded guilty to failing as an employer to ensure that the safety procedures prescribed by the Regulation for Industrial Establishments (Regulation 851/90) were followed. Section 45(b)(i) of that regulation requires that materials, articles or things shall be transported, placed or stored so that the material, articles or things will not tip, collapse or fall. The employer should have ensured that the Genie was transported in such a way that it would not tip, collapse or fall.
Maple Leaf Foods Inc. was fined $110,000 in Woodstock court by Justice of the Peace Michael A. Cuthbertson on September 29, 2017.
