Two years after the tragedy, a company and its bosses were tried on Tuesday in the Castres court, which sentenced them to a suspended prison sentence.
Granite is the pride of Sidobre. In one of the largest granite processing centers in the world and France’s leading producer, southern Tarn know-how is concentrated in around twenty granite quarries. Working it is no small feat, from extracting it to moving the massive blocks, and the slightest handling error can be tragic.
In the space of two weeks, the judicial court of Castres looked into two work accidents. The first judged on January 3, where an employee of a Burlats granite company saw his hand crushed by a 17.5 tonne block, in April 2020. The second, this Tuesday, more serious: an employee lost his life, crushed by a 600 kg plate, in Lacaune, on December 10, 2019.
Facts. Tuesday December 10, 2019, around 12:15 p.m., in Lacaune, on the site of a company specializing in natural stone. An operator uses his remote control to maneuver a stone weighing at least 200 kg between the overhead crane and the tank carrier. He encounters difficulties when a rocking effect occurs: the huge stone hits plates placed nearby and one of them falls on the operator, who then finds himself stuck between the plate and the truck. His colleagues will try to extricate him from the trap, but it’s too late. Despite this attempt and the intervention of the emergency services, the man died an hour after the accident.
To the victims. Arrived in April 2019 in the company, first on a fixed-term contract then on a permanent contract, the 50-year-old man of Portuguese origin, “simple, hardworking, who never complained” as described by Me Darmais, the family’s lawyer (ex-wife and her two daughters), discovers a new position following a resignation. A one-week express training, on decision of the hierarchy, carried out by the resigning who will show him the usual gestures and what is prohibited. “He was a very nice, pleasant man. We were all very affected by his death”, slips a defendant, qualified as a boss by his employees.
The debates. Immediately after the tragedy, in the afternoon, the labor inspector went on site and their report revealed shortcomings, negligence or imprudence in the organization of the family business. “Old-fashioned” operation with no written loading procedure, for example. The internal hierarchical organization is unclear: “It’s a family business that may have grown too quickly,” concedes the boss.
The prosecution will also raise the “great state of wear” of the overhead crane and the lack of training for the employee: “It is always unpleasant to hear a business manager say that the employee has made a mistake (that of “putting the plates next to the truck when they shouldn’t be there). If the employee had been properly trained and had received clear instructions, he would certainly not have had this accident.” The argument of M.e Alary, the lawyer for the couple of defendants, under the eyes of the victim’s family, convinced the court not to follow precisely the requisitions of the public prosecutor and to decide on a lower sentence of the desired 2 years in prison. and a €20,000 fine for the company.
The court’s decision. The company was sentenced to a fine of €15,000, while the boss and her husband were sentenced to 15 and 18 months in prison, suspended and banned from managing for three years. And the president of the court launched to the two defendants: “It’s time to retire”.
