Florida company ‘willfully’ put workers in cave-in danger, faces $303,000 in fines: OSHA
An Oveido construction company’s workers on faced cave-in hazards via safety violations OSHA classified as “Willful.”
Cathcart Construction faces fines of $303,611 from nine violations found at worksites in Orlando and Winter Garden, the Department of Labor announced.
Most of that proposed fine, $242,886, comes from the two “Willful” violations, one at each site. Of OSHA’s violation classifications, “Willful” is the worst, defined as “a violation in which the employer either knowingly failed to comply with a legal requirement (purposeful disregard) or acted with plain indifference to employee safety.”
The Citation and Notification of Penalty said on Jan. 10, at a sewer improvement project in Winter Garden, workers “were exposed to a cave-in/engulfment hazard” while toiling in a six-foot, one-inch deep, six-feet long, excavation next to traffic.
“The soil was previously disturbed Type “C” soil,” the inspector noted. “No protective system (shoring, shielding or sloping) was provided for employee protection.”
(Type C soil is the weakest kind. Examples from OSHA’s Trenching and Excavation Safety: “less, granular soils (including gravel, sand, and loamy sand), submerged soil or soil from which water is freely seeping, submerged rock that is not stable...”)
On Oct. 22 at 25 West Sturtevant St. in Orlando, “untrained employees were directed to work in a trench that was 7 feet deep, with vertical sides, in class C soil and without cave-in protection being provided.”
This was at 7:15 a.m. Similar violations in the same trench were noted at noon and 1 p.m. the same day.
State records say Cathcart Construction Company — Florida is managed by John Cathcart, David Cathcart and Matt Blanton. Two emails from the Miami Herald to Cathcart and a phone message were not returned.
