Toronto home builder fined $50,000 for 2019 fatality
A Toronto-based company will pay a fine of $50,000 for its role in a construction-site fatality.
Goldentrust Development Inc., which operates out of Willowdale Avenue in Toronto, pled guilty to violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act and its regulations in provincial offences court.
The accident in question occurred on November 6, 2019 on one of Goldentrust’s residential construction sites on Flaremore Crescent in Toronto. A self-employed owner of a sub-contractor was fatally injured at the workplace when they fell approximately six meters to the bottom of an unguarded elevator shaft.
The worker was installing door hardware and wooden panelling in the house. While installing a door handle on a second-story elevator door in the house, the worker was exposed to the opening of the elevator shaft, which was not protected by a guardrail, and fell.
Goldentrust Development Inc. pled guilty to failing to ensure that the opening to the elevator shaft was protected by a guardrail to prevent a worker from falling into the shaft.
The company was fined $50,000 for the violation by Justice of the Peace Karen Valentine, and will pay an additional 25-percent victim fine surcharge.