Roofer was ‘willful’ in putting workers in danger, OSHA says in proposing $274,000 fine
A New Port Richey roofer faces proposed fines totaling $274,215 after an OSHA investigation found two company worksites combined to disregard basic science (what happens if you fall off a roof) as well as parental science (nail guns can shoot your eye out).
And inspectors classified two of Brad McDonald Roofing & Construction’s violations as Willful, which the Occupational Health and Safety Administration defines 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.”
A testiness seems to have entered the relationship between Brad McDonald Roofing, registered in 2003 by Bradford McDonald, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
After Brad McDonald got cited for failing to have guardrails, safety nets or personal fall arrest systems for workers toiling on a house roof late in 2018, the company couldn’t get the proposed $49,796 fine reduced in January. That fine has been sent to debt collection, according to OSHA’s website.
That’s also the amount of the unreduced fine Brad McDoanld paid in February, each for a duty to have fall protection violation. Brad McDonald settled the previous seven OSHA proposed fines downward before ponying up the payment.
What faces them now comes from OSHA inspections at two residential sites earlier this year.
At 18928 Willowmore Cedar Dr. in Lutz, Florida, on Feb. 7, the Citation and Notification of Penalty says three people working on a roof with a 5:12 roof pitch (22.62 degrees) were “exposed to an over 18-foot fall to the ground in that fall protection equipment was not installed or utilized.”
Though Brad McDonald had been cited nine previous times for not providing protection for employees on roofs over six feet, that wasn’t a Repeat violation. That was the Willful violation. The Repeat violation was the portable ladder being used didn’t extend at least 3 feet above the roof’s edge.
A month later, March 7, at 4530 Long Branch Lane in Palmetto, OSHA accused Brad McDonald of the same fall protection violation, also called Willful, this time on a 20-foot roof.
They also got hit with a Repeat violation for “Employees...using pneumatic nail guns without the use of any eye protection,” a violation for which Brad McDonald got cited in 2015 while working on a home in Wesley Chapel.
