Toronto construction company fined $325K after worker fatally pinned by steel casing

TORONTO—A Toronto-based heavy civil construction company was fined $325,000 after a worker was killed by a runaway steel casing on a road reconstruction site in Markham, Ont.

Coco Paving Inc. was handed the fine in Newmarket court Oct. 15. The court also imposed a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act, credited to a provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

The incident occurred in November 2015 while the company was upgrading watermains buried under Highway 7 as part of a larger road widening project.

An employee was welding two sections of steel casting on the north shoulder of the highway when a forklift approached to lift and rotate the casing to complete the weld.

The casing — weighing a total of 5,400 pounds —  dislodged from its wooden support and rolled into a six-foot ditch onto the worker, who became pinned in the ditch. The worker later succumbed to the injuries.