London companies pay $90K in combined fines for 2020 workplace incident
Two London-based companies – a developer and an electrical contractor – will pay fines worth a total of $90,000 for their role in a 2020 worksite incident that severely injured a worker.
York Developments (London) Inc. and Arcon Electric Ltd. both entered guilty pleas in a London courtroom. The court fined York Developments $55,000 for its involvement in the incident; Arcon Electric was fined $35,000.
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.
The incident occurred on February 18, 2020. York Developments was the owner and constructor of a project to build two condominium towers on Fanshawe Park Road West in London. Arcon Electric Ltd. had been hired as a subcontractor to provide plumbing, and another construction management company had been hired to act as the project manager.
The building site was accessible by three driveways: one on the east side of the project, one on the west and one between the two towers.
On this day, workers from Arcon Electric were expecting a delivery truck, which entered the centre driveway between the two buildings.
Because there was another truck already on the driveway and there was not enough space for the delivery truck to turn around, the site supervisor, employed by the construction management company, told the driver to reverse back down the driveway and continue reversing along Fanshawe Road until they arrived at the east driveway.
The project manager asked two workers from Arcon to act as signallers for the reversing truck, one in front and one behind.
While the truck was reversing along Fanshawe Road, the driver accelerated slightly because there was a break in traffic that would allow a turn into the driveway. The driver did not know there was a worker behind the truck, acting as a signaller.
The truck struck and severely injured the worker.