Company pleads guilty to "deliberate concealment" after a fatality

Companies are required by law in almost all countries to cooperate fully with government safety organizations in investigation an incident. Occasionally, companies do not cooperate and the country’s judicial system gets involved. Here is a recent development on an incident that we have been posting about since the tragedy occurred.

An aluminium company which operates an aluminum manufacturing plant in the USA, has pleaded guilty to concealing felony offenses from law enforcement as well as its foreign parent company.

The company is set to be sentenced Aug. 1 on a count of misprision (deliberate concealment of one’s knowledge) of a felony, according to a release from the local office of the U.S. District Attorney. The spokesman for that office, said last month the company could face a financial penalty.

A worker 21 years of age was killed in October 2012 when racks containing hot aluminum product weighing between 4,000 and 5,000 pounds that he was pushing on a conveyor tipped over, crushing him. Another worker was seriously injured but survived.

A separate October indictment against the local plant’s general manager, and its safety coordinator, charged them with covering up the incident and coercing employees into lying to U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigators and alleges leadership knew the machinery was unsafe as early as 2009.

Both have pleaded not guilty and are set for a July trial at the federal courthouse locally.

The company itself was federally charged last month with concealing felony obstruction of justice offenses from company management in (another country), as well as law enforcement.

The aluminum company’s local attorney declined to comment this week.

We offer our sincere condolences to the deceased worker’s family and friends. This continued court action involving the death of their son has prolonged their grief. Grief over the loss of a loved one is dramatic, but grief over the loss of family who died while on the job is exponentially.

As we have said many times before that we hope at some point in time that the family members will remember the deceased as how he lived and not as how he died. That is our hope.

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