Farmer guilty after son died in tractor accident

Fell out of skid bucket helping build laneway

A farmer northwest of Toronto, whose four- year- old son fell out of a skid bucket while the father was working, was found guilty of criminal negligence causing death — the first reported case of its kind the judge or lawyers involved could find.

Emanuel Bauman was building a laneway on his farm in Gray Highlands, about 160 kilometres northwest of Toronto, when the accident occurred on Aug.

31. Bauman was moving woodchips in a trailer, while his sons Steven, four, and Luke, seven, were standing in the bucket. Steven fell when Bauman wasn’t looking and suffered a fatal head injury.

Bauman “has always accepted full moral responsibility for his son’s death,” Ontario Court Justice Julia Morneau said in her written decision released May

15. “The issue is whether Mr. Bauman is criminally responsible for his son’s death.”

Bauman’s children were “doing what so many children do on a farm — spending time with their father as he worked,” Morneau wrote of defence lawyer Doug Grace’s characterization of incident.

Bauman was looking back at the trailer as it dropped its load and when he turned forward again he noticed Steven wasn’t there. He called to Luke, who told him Steven fell out, Morneau wrote.

Bauman reversed the skid steer about eight feet and saw Steven on the ground. He had been trapped under the bucket and suffered fatal head injuries as a result.

Bauman called 911 on his cellphone. Multiple emergency responders attended and an air ambulance took Steven to the Hospital for Sick Children, where he died later that afternoon.

Grey County Crown attorney Peter Leger argued Bauman was criminally responsible from the moment he let Steven ride with him.

Bauman pleaded not guilty but called no witnesses and conceded everything in the Crown disclosure: photos, the autopsy report and his statements to police.

Morneau’s reasons for the judgment noted an expert reported it would never be safe for children to ride in

his father’s attention was, inevitably, going to be drawn to his work.

the bucket of the machine and that decals on the skid steer warned against doing this.

She wrote this was the fourth trip that day with the boys on the skid steer. On one of the earlier trips, Steven was in the small operator’s compartment, designed for a lone operator, with his father.

Bauman admitted to police he knew the children shouldn’t have been in the bucket and allowing them to do so was a “straight no-no.”

“He explained that Steven was excited about riding in the bucket but that his sons did not realize the risk,” the judgment said.

Morneau reviewed the case law on the elements of criminal negligence — and noted she found it surprising that neither she nor the Crown or defence lawyers could find a single reported criminal law decision in Canada in which a child had died on a farm.

However, not all trial outcomes are reported in law journals and Grace said in an interview later that he didn’t know if there were cases that went unreported.

The judge also weighed Bauman’s actions and intentions and concluded she must convict.

“I have no doubt Luke and Steven were excited to ride on the machine with their father. A reasonably prudent parent in these circumstances, whether an experienced farmer or not, would not give in to that excitement.”

She said even allowing them to ride in the bucket, though reckless and dangerous, wasn’t enough to support a finding of guilty.

“Children have ridden with their fathers on their tractors for generations. Objectively assessed those tractor rides — children standing beside their father or riding on the fenders have always been dangerous,” Morneau wrote.

“What is different in this case is that four- yearold Steven was standing in a bucket, untethered, when his father’s attention was, inevitably, going to be drawn to his work and away from Steven.”

She concluded it was “completely foreseeable” that Steven could fall out and that while Bauman was looking back — even momentarily, as the defence argued — that “serious life-threatening bodily harm would occur.”

Bauman is scheduled to return to the Owen Sound courtroom on July 23 for the sentencing submissions.