L&I finds 3 serious violations after Dawson Construction worker dies near Costco
The state Department of Labor and Industries levied $14,400 in fines against Dawson Construction for three serious violations it says played a role in the death of a Dawson employee after a dump truck backed into him at a construction site near Costco last summer.
Tucker D. Rojas, 24, died in the work-related incident July 22 in the new residential development being built off Mahogany Avenue just north of Costco.
“Since Tucker’s accidental death, we have focused our efforts on supporting his family and our team members,” Dawson Construction Chief Financial Officer Todd Rawls told The Bellingham Herald in a statement. “We take care of our people because they are our future.”
Among those efforts, Rawls said Dawson provided assistance to the family and grief counseling to family team members that needed it.
Labor and Industries opened an investigation into the workplace fatality and released its results in late September.
According to L&I’s Citation and Notice of Assessment obtained by The Bellingham Herald, Dawson was cited with serious violations because:
▪ The dump truck’s back-up alarm was not operating properly.
▪ The employee operating the dump truck did not have the proper training or experience to operate it.
▪ Dawson did not ensure that a safety inspection was conducted on the dump truck on the construction site.
Each violation carried a $4,800 penalty, according to the document, while a fourth, general violation for not conducting a Crew Safety Meeting on the job site, did not have a monetary penalty.
The document also noted that all four violations were corrected during the inspection.
“Since safety is our first priority as a company, Dawson cooperated fully with the department in their investigation,” Rawls said in the statement. “Additionally, we have performed an internal review, and we continue to implement further safety measures to protect against this type of incident from ever happening again.”
According to the L&I report, the back-up alarm on the dump truck that hit Rojas hadn’t been operating properly for a week and was not reported by anyone on the job site, exposing employees “to being struck and/or run over while the truck is backing.” A safety inspection of the truck at the beginning of the shift also should have noted any equipment that wasn’t operating properly, the report stated.
In addition, the driver of the truck was on his first day of the job, according to the L&I report, and had been given only approximately 20 minutes of training on how to operate a 58,000-pound gross vehicle weight rating truck on the job site on a route that “required extensive backing.”
Dawson has appealed the citations, and Rawls said that process is ongoing. Because of that Dawson has not paid the fines yet, L&I spokesperson Frank Ameduri told The Herald, adding that the appeals process can take several months.
“Our intent is full resolution of all issues and final acceptance of the investigation findings,” Rawls said in the statement. “We maintain a close relationship with the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries as an integral part of our long-standing commitment to safety and our overall safety record.”
Rawls said Dawson owns one of the best safety records in Washington state and is one of three contractors in Alaska to receive the top safety designation of “Chase Gold.”
The maximum base penalty for serious violations is $7,000, but Ameduir said a lot of factors, including the gravity of the violation, the likelihood it results in injury or death and the number of employees, are considered. The penalties also are not based on outcomes, but on the violations themselves, and Ameduri said there are statutory guidelines about how they’re calculated.
“So, for these violations, they were not willful or repeat, so they were going to be something relative to the base fine,” Ameduri told The Herald. “They may have gotten reductions for things like number of employees, employer faith — basically what efforts does the employer generally make toward safety and health — and so on. In this case, I think the penalties are pretty normal.”
L&I also didn’t find any aggravating factors in this incident, such as if the violations had been willful, which can multiply fines by 10 for serious violations, Ameduri said.
“At this time, all of us at Dawson continue to offer our sympathy and deepest condolences to the family and our team members affected by this accident,” Rawls told The Herald. “We also want to thank the community for all the outpouring of support we have received as our attention has been focused on the families directly impacted, all our team members and full cooperation with the investigation.”
This story was originally published December 12, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
