Viterra found not guilty in employee’s 2011 death

Company cleared of six Canada Labour Code charges after employee buried in seed bin

A Saskatoon judge has acquitted Viterra of six charges under the Canada Labour Code in connection with the death of a junior employee who suffocated in a grain bin at a terminal near Rosetown nearly five years ago.

In a written decision, Queen’s Bench Justice Grant Currie ruled the Crown had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the company neglected to teach Paul Cruse how to unplug a blockage in a receiving pit, how to keep safe when doing so, and about the hazard of being engulfed in grain.

On Sept. 8, 2011, Cruse entered the grain receiving pit to deal with an apparent blockage at the screen on the pit’s bottom.

He was immediately engulfed once he stepped onto the canola seed inside.

The 27-year-old had been working at the Viterra terminal for three and a half months, according to the decision.

Currie said he believed the testimony of assistant manager Clint Charlie, who said he told Cruse to look into the receiving pit with a flashlight to see if anything was blocked.

Bob Barrie, a contractor who was delivering grain that day, testified that Charlie told him if the pit was in fact blocked, Cruse would have to go inside to clear it. Currie said he cannot accept Barrie’s evidence because there were too many inconsistencies between his three statements.

Instead, he accepted Charlie’s evidence that he would not have told Cruse to go into the pit because it’s not possible to clear that kind of blockage from inside.

The Crown argued Cruse wouldn’t have entered the pit without following safety procedures if he had been properly instructed and trained.

Evidence presented at the trial showed Cruse had taken and passed training modules about the dangers of confined space entry, and learned that he was not to enter a confined space, like a grain pit, without getting the necessary hands-on training — which he had not yet received.

“Viterra did not have an obligation to train and supervise Mr. Cruse with respect to the actual unblocking of a receiving pit, because Viterra did not tell him to do that job,” Currie wrote in his decision.

Viterra did not have an obligation to train and supervise Mr. Cruse with respect to the actual unblocking of a receiving pit, because Viterra did not tell him to do that job.

He acquitted the grain company of two counts of failing to instruct Cruse how to unplug a blockage in a receiving pit, two counts of failing to train and supervise him so as to ensure his health and safety when responding to a blockage in a receiving pit, and two counts of failing to ensure he was made aware of the hazard of being engulfed in grain.