An employer and supervisor who failed to obtain an operator’s manual for a rip saw, and therefore failed to follow it, have been found guilty of offences under the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The charges resulted from an accident in which an 18 inch long shard or stake of wood was ejected from a rip saw and pierced the arm of a worker who was working nearby.
The employer argued that the machine had proper safety mechanisms to avoid such incidents, and therefore that the accident was not foreseeable.
The court found that the employer had failed to even obtain the applicable operator’s manual for the machine. There was no evidence that any worker or supervisor had read the manual. The manual noted that there was risk to the operator and “third persons” from “kicked back material”. By not reading the manual, the supervisor had not acquainted himself with the inherent risks associated with the rip saw, nor had he taken the necessary steps to address those risks. The employer could have, for instance, erected a barrier to protect workers from kicked back materials. Further, the employer did not have a program in place to check for broken “anti kickback teeth” or fingers, one of which was found to be broken.
The court stated:
“[T]aking all reasonable care also requires more than just arguing that the best equipment had been purchased and installed, to show what steps had been taken to prevent the event that had occurred . . . Moreover, the defendants would have had to respectively take proper care to acquire knowledge about the measures and requirements to properly operate the rip saw machines safely, to ensure that the machine’s protective elements were functioning properly, and to prevent any of the inherent risks outlined by the manufacturer in the 2007 Operating Manual from occurring, including the risks from splinters and material being kicked back by the machine’s saw blades. Being passive and simply relying on the machine’s internal shields and guards would not demonstrate that either defendant had taken all reasonable steps respectively to ensure the safety of the workers at the Alpa Lumber plant working in the vicinity of Rip Saw #1 while it was operating.”
This case demonstrates that employers cannot rely only on safety features built into machines; instead, employers must demonstrate that employees are familiar with potential hazards of machines and take steps to avoid those hazards.
Ontario (Ministry of Labour) v. Alpa Lumber Mills, 2016 ONCJ 675 (CanLII)
