Geisha Kow­lessar

An In­dus­tri­al Court judge has or­dered a Pe­nal elec­tri­cal com­pa­ny to pay $45,000 fol­low­ing the death of one of its work­ers some four years ago. In de­liv­er­ing her judg­ment, In­dus­tri­al Court judge Heather Seale or­dered N&S Elec­tri­cal Co to pay the mon­ey to the es­tate of Dex­ter Dover by Sep­tem­ber 1. On May 18, 2006, Dover, 39, a tree-trim­mer em­ployed with the com­pa­ny, was clear­ing around high-ten­sion wires near Main and 17th B Streets, Beetham Gar­dens.

A branch of a tree which Dover was at­tempt­ing to trim came in­to con­tact with an over­head 33KV ten­sion wire, re­sult­ing in his elec­tro­cu­tion. The in­ci­dent was then in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the OSH Au­thor­i­ty, af­ter which two com­plaints were filed against the com­pa­ny. At­tor­ney Sean Caz­abon, spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor, act­ed on be­half of the au­thor­i­ty, as­sist­ed by West­min James. The charges were read to the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Nel­son Lalsiew on be­half of the em­ploy­er, fol­low­ing which Lalsiew en­tered guilty pleas to both charges.

In hand­ing down the judg­ment, Seale said the court took in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the prompt ad­mis­sion of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and a time­ly guilty plea. The com­pa­ny al­so as­sist­ed in the fi­nan­cial sup­port of Dover's fam­i­ly, which in­clud­ed pay­ments of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $140,000. Up­on the dis­missal of the court, Lalsiew ex­pressed his re­morse over Dover's death. "Mr Dover's death was a very sad loss. Em­ploy­ees must re­alise they have a du­ty to car­ry out their var­i­ous re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. They must not on­ly col­lect a pay cheque at the end of the day," Lalsiew said.

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The charges:

�2 The em­ploy­er failed to dis­charge its du­ty un­der Sec­tion 6 (1) of the OS­HA Act, No 1 of 2004 to en­sure so far as was rea­son­ably prac­ti­ca­ble, the safe­ty, health and wel­fare at work of its em­ploy­ee Dex­ter Dover, con­trary to Sec­tion 83 (1) of the Act; and,

�2 be­ing an em­ploy­er, failed to dis­charge its du­ty un­der Sec­tion 13 (A) of the OS­HA Act 1 of 2004 to make a suit­able and suf­fi­cient as­sess­ment of the risks to the safe­ty and health of its em­ploy­ees to which they are ex­posed to while at work, con­trary to Sec­tion 83 (1) of the act.