Opinion ID: 1910213
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Safety Practices

Text: Spino Bros.'s contract with DePasquale Bldg. required that Spino Bros. comply with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations. Accordingly, Carl Lemos, an OSHA compliance officer, testified about DePasquale Bldg. and Spino Bros.'s required safety practices and their corresponding standards of care. Lemos maintained that DePasquale Bldg. carried the overall responsibility of ensuring safe work practices at the construction site, but that each subcontractor also had a responsibility to make its own work areas safe. Despite DePasquale Bldg.'s responsibility to maintain a safe construction site, Lemos testified that, under OSHA, DePasquale Bldg. had no control over Spino Bros.'s employees. DePasquale Bldg.'s President, Mark DePasquale (DePasquale), also testified that his company was responsible for fall protection and also maintained that subcontractors, such as Spino Bros., were responsible for maintaining existing fall protection. DePasquale admitted that his employees removed steel cable from the area where Carlos fell and replaced it with wooden boards, but explained that such action was an industrywide practice enabling workers to load supplies. Spino conceded that such practices also satisfied OSHA's safety regulations. According to DePasquale Bldg.'s superintendent, Donald Pedro, despite his instruction that workers should not remove safety barriers without first obtaining permission, Carlos removed the barrier, apparently without permission. To rebut DePasquale's testimony, Spino Bros. presented John P. O'Donovan, corporate safety director for Gilbane Building Company, who opined that a reasonable general contractor would not have removed the steel cable without replacing it. According to O'Donovan, it was foreseeable that the wooden guardrail would be removed. Spino Bros.'s president, Michael Spino (Spino), further protested that removing the steel cables was unnecessary given that the area was not being used as a loading dock the day of Carlos's accident. DePasquale Bldg. also introduced into evidence Spino Bros.'s own safety manual, which specified that if a worker removed a wooden barrier, he or she was required to implement a secondary safety measure, including wearing a safety harness. Nevertheless, contradicting evidence was introduced at trial with respect to whether Carlos had safety training while in Spino Bros.'s employ. Spino maintained that Carlos received individualized safety training, but Michael Tessier, a Spino Bros. employee, testified that Spino Bros. had no mandatory safety training until after Carlos's accident. Tessier further testified that he could not recall any meeting before Carlos's fall when safety was discussed with Spino Bros. employees. Indeed, Spino conceded that his company never showed Carlos how to wear a safety harness. Contradicting evidence was also introduced at trial regarding the bricklaying technique Spino Bros.'s employees were instructed to engage in the day of Carlos's accident. Before Carlos began work on the Ella Risk School project, he was trained to work on scaffolding to perform masonry work. Scaffolding along a building's exterior enabled masons to lay exterior brick walls from outside the building. Spino Bros.'s project manual and its contract with DePasquale Bldg. specified that scaffolding shall be erected so masons could block up bays without using the overhand bricklaying technique, a method by which brick is laid from inside rather than outside the building. [1] At trial, Spino testified that employees working on this job site never were trained to perform overhand bricklaying because his company did not use such a method for that job. Spino's trial testimony, however, contradicted his previous deposition testimony that his company used the overhand bricklaying technique, but only in the area where Carlos fell. Despite Spino's assertion that his company did not perform overhand bricklaying, Spino Bros.'s safety manual provides specific instructions regarding that method. Under Spino Bros.'s guidelines, masons engaged in overhand bricklaying must be protected from falling by guardrails, nets, personal fall arrest systems or must work in a controlled access zone. Although DePasquale Bldg. had the overall responsibility of ensuring safe work practices at the construction site, Spino candidly acknowledged that general contractors, such as DePasquale Bldg., did not train Spino Bros.'s employees in the overhand bricklaying method because that technique was unique to masons. D