Posted on 10/18/2010 8:33:24 PM PDT by thecodont
The owner and the manager of a San Francisco printing plant have been charged with involuntary manslaughter and labor code violations in the 2008 death of a pregnant worker who was crushed to death by a cutting and creasing machine at the plant.
The owner of Digital Pre-Press International, Sanjay Sakhuja, 52, of Alameda and the pressroom manager Alick Yeung, 50, of San Francisco, have been charged with manslaughter and a willful violation of labor laws in the January 29, 2008, death of Margarita Mojica, 26.
Sakhuja and Yeung were expected to surrender Tuesday. Sakhuja's bail is set at $300,000 and Yeung's is fixed at $100,000.
[...]
Mojica, of Oakland, was preparing a box creasing and cutting machine to start a job at the Mariposa Street plant, replacing a cutting die. She was leaning into the machine, when the machine suddenly activated and closed like a giant clamshell, prosecutors say. It took 20 minutes for firefighters to free her from the machine at the Potrero Hill plant.
Mojica had a young daughter and a husband, Martin Breuer, and was 17 weeks pregnant. The wrongful death civil lawsuit has since been settled, reportedly for $6 million.
Prosecutors allege that DPI workers were not properly trained to make sure cutting equipment was shut down during set up.
The company allegedly did not follow regulations requiring such dangerous machines to be padlocked in the off position. Also, prosecutors say, the company did not use a failsafe protocol that requires two workers to simultaneously activate the device.
The company was allegedly using a previously owned cutting and creasing machine that it purchased in 2003. Workers at one point asked to remove a safety bar from the machine to allow it to handle thicker cardboard, investigators said. The safety bar was not reinstalled.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
A manslaughter charge is preposterous unless someone waited for the victim to get into position and then intentionally pressed the “on” button to kill her. Wouldn’t that be murder and not manslaughter?
This is a workers compensation claim. There was also negligence and a product liability claim. Kamala Harris is running for Attorney General and the election will be over before they laugh “manslaughter” out of court.
No.
Did the owners screw up? Yes. Did they know about it in detail? Maybe, maybe not.
Did the operator know she was exposing herself to a large chunk of metal overhead without support? Oh yeah.
I also carry key locks that I've personally keyed when I go to job sites to lock out panels.
No-one else has a key, I lock it. I unlock it. I don't get paid extra for it, I just get to go home. And no-one gets charged or sued. Because that can't help business, somone getting mushed.
/johnny
Very sad...for everyone involved.
How could this business that employs 85 people and that can spend $250,000 on this machine NOT have one person who knows Lock Out Tag Out?
“Workers at one point asked to remove a safety bar from the machine to allow it to handle thicker cardboard, investigators said. The safety bar was not reinstalled.”
Are the workers in trouble as well since they asked the bar be removed
From the facts made available, the victim herself may have accidentally activated the machine. A violation of safety standards likely could still exist.
I thought everyone who works these days knows Lock Out Tag Out. I’m in the hospitality business serving food and even we had to sit through the Lock Out Tag Out training.
When I was supervising at a plant the Electricians were required to pull the fuses and then lock the box.
Don’t they mean two deaths?
If that involves tripping the knife switches on the poles outside the business, I have a fiberglass pole that can do that.
Don't want to play my way? I've got the rest of my life to debate the issue.
I don't get every contract, and I can be classified as 'doesn't play well with others' because I'm a jerk about safety. Yours, I'm not concerned about, too much, unless I don't have a signed check. Mine, oh yeah, I worry about that. My crew (if there is one)? Yep. Any of them can shut everything down with a word.
Or we don't play.
I can make it happen, but we will do it safely.
/johnny
OSHA demands immediate up-to-date info from companies but provides quite delayed reports itself. It gives itself license to delay specifying "after OSHA's investigation is complete, these reports will be updated with inspection results and citation information."
I worked on small format offset equipment for thirty years or so, ten years as a factory tech rep and twenty as a self employed contractor. Some of the operators were totally unconscious where safety is concerned. I have known them to put their fingers between the rollers on a Varn Kompac dampener on a small offset. The pressure will split a finger to the bone and the rollers don’t stop turning until the hand stalls the drive motor. One short fat guy picked a seven hundred pound machine off the floor by his finger, I know he did because I had my back to him but I heard the machine hit the concrete when it slipped off his crushed finger. I was glad I didn’t work on the big presses or I might have seen one of them feed himself into the cylinders.
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