Business owner fined after friend killed on the job

Kyle Ringlein and Joel Fersch could date their friendship back to trade school.

By August 2016, Ringlein’s Regina business, High 5 Mechanical, employed just two individuals besides himself, both people he knew well and considered good friends. One of them was Fersch.

On Aug. 9 of that year, Ringlein and Fersch were installing an air-conditioning unit at a Lacon Street home when a neighbour found Ringlein with the news that would devastate Fersch’s loved ones, and Ringlein himself.

Fersch had been fatally electrocuted. He was 29.

Ringlein, 30, appeared this week at Regina provincial court, where he pleaded guilty to an offence under the Saskatchewan Employment Act and Occupational Health and Safety Regulations related to failing to ensure the air conditioner was de-energized or locked out.

He was handed a $17,000 fine and an additional surcharge of $6,800. The maximum fine for the offence for an individual is $500,000, but the joint recommendation from Crown and defence counsel took into account that Ringlein’s business is small and he pleaded guilty.

Defence lawyer Paul Harasen added his client is suffering a different kind of punishment, given the fatality for which he admitted responsibility involved someone he was close to.