A Saco-primarily based roof craftsman is going through almost $1.Eight million in fines for failing to shield his employees from falls, after one died in December in a plunge from a roof on Munjoy Hill.
Shawn D. Purvis, 44, faces a complete $1,792,726 in fines from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The employer cites what is referred to as thirteen egregious violations of failing to protect his employees from fall hazards, one for every worker who labored at activity websites that had been the point of interest of the investigation.
A spokesman for OSHA said it is the most important workplace safety best in New England in the latest years. Four million levy towards a Massachusetts employer in 2017 for failing to defend two employees who died in a trench when it was packed with water. It dwarfs a 2015 penalty of $287,660 for a Maine construction organization for similar disasters to defend against worker falls and a $1.
“Effective fall safety can prevent tragedies like this whilst a company guarantees the proper use of legally required lifesaving protection,” stated OSHA Area Director David McGuan in a declaration. “An ongoing refusal to comply with the regulation exposes other personnel to probably fatal or disabling accidents. Employers can’t avoid their responsibility to ensure a secure and healthful paintings website online.”
Alan Loignon, 30, a longtime Purvis roofing employee and half-brother, fell to his death Dec. 13, 2018, from a 3rd-tale roof on Munjoy Hill in Portland as he attempted to climb down a ladder onto a scaffolding platform, OSHA said in its investigative record.
Under federal OSHA guidelines, any company whose work is exposed to a drop of greater than 6 feet, where there is no guardrail, is required to ensure employees use fall protection, whether or not through personal protection harnesses, trap nets, or other fall-arresting structures.
Among other violations, OSHA levied the maximum high-quality of $132,598 for each of the thirteen people gift at the Munjoy Hill job site and another in Old Orchard Beach who were no longer protected fall-arresting structures required by law.
Purvis has 15 enterprise days to pay the fines, contest them, or ask for an informal assembly with federal officers, wherein he can argue for modification or reduction of the penalty. Purvis’s attorney, Thomas Hallett,s said his client plans to challenge the OSHA fines by arguing that the federal place of job protection Administration is stretching its own guidelines impermissibly and lacks the jurisdiction to sanction Purvis Home Improvement Inc., Purvis’s agency, because Purvis dealt with his workers as subcontractors and, therefore, could not workout management over them.
