Workplace Injury Results in $180,000 Fine For A Windsor Company

Saturn Tool & Die (Windsor) Inc. has been fined after a worker was fatally injured while troubleshooting a stamping press in 2022.

According to the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, on March 28th, 2022, a maintenance worker was called to troubleshoot a quality control problem with an Eagle 2750-ton stamping press.

The worker entered the press through its light curtain, which caused the press to stop operating. The worker did not lock out the machine by putting its ram blocks into place and plugging in the electronic lock out plugs. Unaware that the maintenance worker was inside, another returned to the press, reset the light curtains and cycled the press, fatally injuring the maintenance worker.

An investigation found that it was “common practice at the time of the incident for workers on the production floor not to use ram blocks for troubleshooting or maintenance work of a short duration.”

The ministry says that Saturn Tool & Die (Windsor) Inc. failed, as an employer, to ensure that the motion of any part of the press that could endanger a worker was stopped and blocked during the troubleshooting examination, as required by section 75 of the Ontario Regulation.

Following a guilty plea in the Provincial Offences Court in Windsor, Saturn Tool was fined $180,000 by Justice of the Peace Susan E. Whelan; Crown Counsel was Patrick Travers. The court also imposed a 25 percent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.