The Orange County, California District Attorney (OCDA) obtained a significant judgment in a civil case against a plastics manufacturer for “willfully” endangering employees by maintaining a hazardous work environment. The company must pay $1.6 million for the explosion and related fatalities.

Solus Industrial Innovations operated a plastics manufacturing plant in Rancho Santa Margarita, and beginning in 2007, they willfully, knowingly, and intentionally maintained an unsafe and hazardous work environment for their employees.

They relocated certain operations from Pennsylvania to Orange County in 2007, and defendants intentionally discarded a commercial boiler to avoid the cost and permit requirements of proper installation. Instead, they purchased an installed a residential water heater, knowing it was not equipped to work at a commercial level. The water heater exploded in March 2009 and killed two employees.

The Division of Occupational Safety and Health investigated, determining that the explosion had been caused by a failed safety valve and “lack of any other suitable safety features on the heater due to manipulation and misuse” because of their use of a residential water heater for a commercial job.

The OCDA filed a criminal suit against Solus’s plant manager and maintenance supervisor in March of 2012, for felony violations of Labor Code section 6425 subdivision (a) for knowingly operating an unsafe work environment, which resulted in the death of two employees.

The OCDA also filed a civil action against Solus and its successor corporations, raising two causes of action “all based on the same worker health and safety standards placed at issue in the administrative proceedings.” The first alleged that Solus’s “failure to comply with workplace safety standard amounted to an unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business practice under Business and Professions Code section 17200, and the district attorney requested imposition of civil penalties as a consequence of that practice, in the amount of up to $2,500 per day, per employee, for the period from November 29, 2007 through March 19, 2009.”

The second claimed was that Solus “made numerous false and misleading representations concerning its commitment to workplace safety and its compliance with all applicable workplace safety standards, and as a result of those false and misleading statements, Solus was allegedly able to retain employees and customers in violation of Business and Professions Code section 17500.” The district attorney requested imposition of civil penalties in the same amount for the same period.

On January 29, 2019 the defendants were ordered to pay $1.6 million, $1.5 million of which will go towards civil penalties and $100,000 for additional victim restitution.

Read the press release from the Office of the District Attorney, Orange County, California.