Freezer maker hit for tossing evidence in suit

GAINESVILLE, Ga. — A state court judge in Georgia has sanctioned a German company for destroying evidence in a suit over six deaths at a chicken processing plant northeast of Atlanta.

Local news outlets report Gwinnett County State Court Judge Emily Brantley on Friday ordered sanctions against Messer, the company that made the freezer equipment that released a cloud of nitrogen gas in a deadly Jan. 28 incident in Gainesville. She said the conduct of company employees was “shockingly unacceptable and at best is grossly negligent.”

Investigators have said nitrogen overflowed the freezer at Foundation Food Group. Three workers were trying to repair the freezer when nitrogen filled the room, which is at a lower level than adjacent areas, making it unlikely the heavier-than-air gas would disperse. Those three died, as did three supervisors who tried to rescue them. Federal officials have said the deaths were preventable, proposing heavy fines.

The freezer relied on a metal tube called a bubbler as a safety device to keep the nitrogen from overflowing, court papers have said. But the bubbler was bent, meaning its opening was too high for it to work correctly.

Brantley wrote that a Messer technician found a bent tube on another of its freezers at a food processing factory in Stillmore, Georgia, between Macon and Savannah, after the deadly incident in Gainesville.

Both tubes were held in place by only one bracket, not the two Messer designed for.

The Messer employee was told the tube in Stillmore often bent during maintenance, according to a text message the Messer worker sent his supervisor.

“Probably what happened at FFG,” the Messer worker wrote, referring to Foundation Food Group in Gainesville.