OSHA Penalties Upheld Against Vermont Cable Firm Over Death at New York Site

An administrative law judge has affirmed Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) citations and $24,290 in penalties issued to Eustis Cable Enterprises Ltd., a Brookfield, Vermont, telecommunications contractor, following the death of an employee at an Andover, New York, worksite.

OSHA’s Buffalo area office investigated and cited Eustis Cable on June 10, 2020, for serious violations for failing to provide the employees with required safeguards, including effective training and personal protective equipment.

Eustis Cable contested the citations and penalties to the review commission on July 1, 2020. The Department of Labor’s solicitor in New York litigated the case for OSHA, deposing multiple witnesses during pretrial discovery, amending OSHA’s citations and developing a detailed trial record on which the judge based his decision.

Following an April 2022 trial, Judge Dennis L. Phillips of the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission issued a decision upholding OSHA’s amended citations and penalties on October 31, 2022. The decision became a final order of the review commission on December 16, 2022.

According to OSHA, on January 13, 2020, a company work crew was lashing fiber optic cable to a support strand between a series of utility poles when the lashing machine malfunctioned. The crew did not have a ladder or other appropriate tools with them to reach the machine. Instead, in an effort to fix the machine, the foreman went out onto the strand, using his climbing belt as a seat as he advanced hand over hand down the line. Midway back to the pole, he lost his grip on the wire, the climbing belt slid up his back and cinched at the neck and he was asphyxiated as he hung suspended from the climbing belt.

“It is vital that employers properly train employees and provide them with effective personal protective equipment so they can perform their work safely and return home at the end of each workday. Failure to do so can have life-threatening consequences for workers,” said OSHA Regional Administrator Richard Mendelson in New York.

Topics New York Workers' Compensation Training Development Vermont