North West Lumber Co. has been fined $55,000 by a justice of the peace for its role in a workplace accident that led to a worker’s fall from a roof.

The incident occurred in February 2018, and the fine was administered in in provincial offences court in Sudbury on December 1 of this year. North West Lumber pled guilty to charges of failing to ensure a worker was using a safety belt or harness and lifeline when exposed to the hazard of falling more than three metres.

North West Lumber Co. Ltd. operates the Home Hardware Building Centre at 3299 Errington Avenue in Chelmsford, in the City of Greater Sudbury.

In the winter of 2018–19, there was a large accumulation of snow on the roof of a shed in the yard of the building centre.

In January of 2018, North West Lumber hired a contractor to remove snow from the roof of the building, which had become structurally damaged due to the snow load. A few weeks later, further bowing and cracking of another structural support beam on the east side of the building was observed.

On February 27, 2018 a yard supervisor assembled two North West Lumber employees to remove the accumulated snow load to prevent further structural damage to the building. The third-party contractor was not engaged to perform work on this occasion.

That morning the three employees held a brief meeting to discuss the snow clearing work.  One of the topics was the presence of skylights on the shed roof. These were sheets of corrugated plastic, each of which were two feet wide and seven feet long, and were mounted flush to the shingled roof surface.

One of the skylights was at a location near the snow to be cleared. No identification markers were placed to demarcate the skylight, which was more than 17 feet above the floor of the shed.

All three workers began pushing snow off the sloped roof, which was more than 11 feet above the ground at the edge. None was wearing any type of fall protection equipment and no guardrails were in place at the roof edge or around the skylights. There had been no discussion of fall protection at the morning meeting and no fall protection equipment was provided to the workers by North West Lumber.

After lunch one of the workers returned to the roof of the shed and continued clearing snow.  While doing so the worker stepped on the skylight, broke through and fell to the ground below, suffering injuries.

The supervisor re-attended on the shed roof to finish clearing the snow and to measure the skylight opening and install a temporary cover. The supervisor was not wearing fall protection.

The injured worker did not have training in working at heights.