Defence wants more detail regarding charges against company over workplace death

By Peggy Revell on April 14, 2018.

prevell@medicinehatnews.com @MHNprevell

Defence lawyers for a company charged following an ammonia leak at CF Industries in 2015 that left one worker dead and another injured were in court Friday asking that the Crown provide specifics when it comes to the case against their client.

“What did Aluma do to create an unhealthy and unsafe workplace? We don’t know,” said counsel for Aluma Systems Inc., arguing that a fair trial with full defence requires that the Crown provide particulars of what elements are being alleged for two counts of failure to ensure the health and safety of the workers.

These charges were laid in November under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, alongside charges of failure to take measures to eliminate or control a hazard, failure to ensure a hazard assessment was repeated when a work process or operation changed, and failure to provide safeguards where a worker could accidentally, or through the work process, come into contact with a hazard.

A number of facts that Crown and defence do agree upon were outlined at the hearing.

This includes that on Dec. 7, 2015 two workers with Alumna Systems were on an aerial work platform, in the bucket at the CF Industries site. One worker — the 49-year-old deceased —was operating the machine, with the other worker on lookout.

Some part of the vehicle, most likely the tire, struck a bleed pipe valve containing pressurized ammonia. The ammonia was immediately released.

The worker who was a lookout put on a gas mask immediately, and suffered serious burns to his body.

The other didn’t put his gas mask on right away. He was taken by EMS to hospital and pronounced dead two hours later.

Defence told the court that the other charges Aluma faces include specific allegations, such as a workplace safety assessment not being completed, or the pipe not properly being protected— but this isn’t the case with the two failure to ensure health and safety counts — and they want this sort of detail.

The case also includes disclosure of more than 5,000 pages.

Crown adopted the arguments used in its written submissions, saying both sides are working from the same materials, that what evidence arises during trial is not in their control, and it would not be appropriate to limit the Crown into specific elements.

Discussions with the Crown may resolve issues defence counsel has with other charges.

No trial date has been set yet, although a pretrial conference is set for April 23. The next court appearance for the case is set for April 18.

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