Convicted: Santoro Construction Inc., 3397 American Drive, Unit 15, Mississauga, Ontario.
Location: 27 Fasken Drive in Toronto, where the company was constructing a new office building and renovating an existing building.
Description of Offence: A worker fell from a ladder and suffered critical injuries while performing electrical wiring work on a renovated office site.
Date of Offence: May 10, 2016.
Date of Conviction: April 3, 2018.
Penalty Imposed:
- Following a guilty plea, the company was fined $90,000 in Toronto South court by Justice of the Peace Rosanne Giulietti; Crown Counsel Indira Stewart.
- The court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
Background:
- Santoro Construction Ltd. was the constructor of the project at 27 Fasken Drive and had contracted with GMJ Electric Inc. to carry out all the electrical installations.
- GMJ Electric Inc. employed the worker.
- The worker and a co-worker were tying in and labelling electrical wiring in the ceiling of a renovated office area. The worker was working on the top third rung of a 10-foot step ladder and reaching into an area above the grid of a drop ceiling. The worker fell from the ladder to the floor, suffering critical injuries.
- The defendant, Santoro Construction Inc., failed to provide a worker with the equipment appropriate for situations where work cannot be done on or from the ground without hazard to workers.
- This was contrary to the Occupational Health and Safety Act, violating section 125(1) of the Construction Projects Regulation (Ontario Regulation 213/91), which requires a constructor to provide a worker with a scaffold, a suspended work platform, a boatswain’s chair or a multi-point suspended work platform in situations where work cannot be done on or from the ground without hazard to workers.
- A separate trial will be held with the employer GMJ Electric and an individual as the defendants, scheduled to begin in July 2018.
– Ministry of Labour