Paving contractor fined $40,000 for fatal workplace accident

Equipment’s need for repairs would have been obvious, judge says

A local paving contractor has been fined $40,000 in connection with a fatal accident on a residential worksite three years ago.

Provincial court Judge David Orr rejected Paradise Paving Ltd.’s submission of a $25,000 fine and instead ordered the company to pay an amount that was more in line with what the Crown had suggested.

In presenting his decision in St. John’s Tuesday morning, May 10, Orr stressed the company’s negligence, noting it would have been apparent the paver Gerald Hiscock, 54, had been operating needed several repairs. The judge acknowledged the small size of the company, its lack of prior offences and its quick rectification of issues identified in several stop-work orders and inspections after Hiscock’s death.

Hiscock, a father, grandfather and experienced asphalt paver operator, had been part of a crew tasked with paving two residential driveways in New Harbour, Trinity Bay, having begun his seasonal position with Paradise Paving three days earlier, according to a statement of facts presented in court last month by prosecutor Renée Coates.

As Hiscock was preparing to begin work on the second driveway, he fell from the spreader as he backed it down the driveway, and became trapped underneath it. The homeowners, who witnessed his fall, called 911.

Hiscock’s colleagues attempted to use a mini-excavator and a Bobcat loader to lift the paver off him, but it was too late.

A technician later assigned to inspect the spreader reported he hadn’t been able to get the machine to start without manoeuvring, because the neutral switch had been “tie-wrapped to the side close to the ignition.” The neutral non-creeping switch was broken, he reported, causing the spreader to move in reverse when the operator was not on it. The backup alarm was broken, the catwalk on which the operator stood was in poor shape and tilted backward, and the throttle for the engine RPM had been disconnected, causing the engine to be stuck at full speed, he wrote.

Paradise Paving pleaded guilty to three charges under the province’s occupational health and safety legislation. Representing the company, lawyer Gregory Kirby told the court it hadn’t properly maintained its equipment in an effort to work efficiently.

Hiscock’s sister, who had previously described the anguish her family has experienced since his death, was among the loved ones who attended court to hear the decision Tuesday.