A Florida contractor’s ‘willful’ safety violation led to a 19-year-old’s death, feds say
A Fort Pierce contracting company faces $32,113 in proposed fines after an OSHA investigation into the death of a 19-year-old working on a Port St. Lucie home under construction, the U.S. Department of Labor announced.
And $29,005 of that proposed penalty for Union Carpentry is for a violation classified as “willful,” which the Occupational Safety and Health Administration reserves for “a violation in which the employer either knowingly failed to comply with a legal requirement (purposeful disregard) or acted with plain indifference to employee safety.”
Port St. Lucie police said that employee in this case was Eber Mauricio-Feliciano, who was working on a home in Tradition at Valencia at Riverland development on Jan. 8 when police say he fell off the roof.
After investigating, OSHA’s citation said Mauricio-Feliciano was “exposed to a 25-foot fall hazard while nailing plywood onto trusses without fall protection” at 12320 Calm Pointe Ct.
The other $3,108 of the proposed fine to Union Carpentry was for not making sure that each worker “had been trained by a competent person in the correct procedures for erecting, maintaining, disassembling and inspecting the fall protection systems to be used.”
State records say Union Carpentry was registered with the state in December 2020, is still active and is run by Mario Morales out of a Fort Pierce house. Online database searches turned up no phone number for Union Carpentry or Morales.
“Falls from elevation cause the most fatalities in the construction industry, and time and again, we find employers exposing workers to fall hazards by ignoring safety standards,” said OSHA Area Office Director Condell Eastmond. “Employers who fail to comply with fall protection standards put the lives and well-being of employees at risk and leave families to grieve when unnecessary tragedy strikes.
