It takes significant amounts of human resources in order to maintain a city’s infrastructure. This includes upgrading various aspects of city streets. Recently, one city in California contracted an electrical and lighting company to replace thousands of city streetlights. However, during the process of upgrading the city streetlights, one worker was killed, which could result in a need for the subcontracting company to prepare an employer defense legal strategy.
The fatal incident happened one morning in late June when a worker fell from a boom truck. The 38-year-old worker was working for ABM Electrical & Lighting at the time of the accident, which occurred at approximately 9:40 a.m. The victim was pronounced dead by authorities at the scene of the workplace accident.
The contracting company, OpTerra Energy Services, has a contract with the city government to upgrade 18,000 streetlights with LED lights. However, the project still requires 200 more streetlights to be replaced. This means it is essential for the company to initiate its own investigation in order to prevent a similar occurrence from happening during the remainder of the project.
Additionally, the recent fatal workplace accident in California will more than likely result in work safety authorities also investigating the incident. The investigators will be looking for clues as to what could have caused the man to fall off the boom truck. They will also be looking for any possible safety compliance issues that could have contributed to causing the accident. An employer defense strategy may be needed in the case of citations being issued.
Source: patch.com, “Watsonville Man Killed In Work-Related Accident“, Susan C. Schena, June 25, 2015
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