Jeff Caron Workplace Death / Company J Cote Excavating Sentence. 1 Million dollar Fine Proposed

By Mike Pearson

 This part is 100% from an article in the Tyee.


https://thetyee.ca/News/2026/03/02/Prosecutors-Seek-Fine-Worker-Fatality-Case


This part is me spouting off.

I'd like to remind everyone  that the Sam Fitzpatrick workplace death in 2009 turned out much different.


WorkSafeBC imposed a 250,000 CAD fine against American construction behemoth, Peter Kiewit Sons ( Kiewit)

That's about 3 or 4 minutes of gross income for the multi billion dollar corporation.


Oh no, but wait...The WCAT ( workers compensation appeals tribunal ) mysteriously and suspiciously reduced the fine to 75,000 dollars + special fees ( approx. 90,000 total)


A criminal investigation was bravely launched by the RCMP at the request of Sam's father Brian Fitzpatrick.


That investigation got bogged down and took way, way too many years to complete. ( and...no, it wasn't actually fucking complete because the investigators and BC Prosecutors' Office refused to chase down the Kiewit lawyer that removed critical  physical evidence) " The Missing Rock" ( note...Bill Smart is NOT the lawyer that authorised the removal of critical evidence from the crime scene.)

https://adventuresinmikeslife.blogspot.com/2025/09/sam-fitzpatrick-died-on-kiewit-project.html


In 2021, the Prosecutors Office completely chickened out in the face of going up against well respected lawyer Bill Smart ( current lawyer for J Cote Excavating !! )  and the gigantic American corporation, Kiewit.

The BC Prosecutors office had everything they needed to successfully take the case to court. They made many mistakes, mainly through not being aggressive and assertive enough.  

They let Kiewit ragdoll them by intimidation of size and reputation.

Hopefully...and I mean hopefully, those days are now behind us 

In this J Cote Excavating case, the investigators and Prosecution Service are showing their newly sharpened legal fangs.

More of that please!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lost treasure trove of Abandoned Logging Machines....Part One

By Mike Pearson
Image
Canada Day 2012, what better way to celebrate than to go into the Canadian rain forest in search of lost mechanized treasures. The growth of the alder trees and underbrush was fairly intimidating, We only had hand tools, but faced a solid wall of green where we wanted to get into. We threw ourselves into the task for about half an hour and started to see good progress. That lead to hours more cutting,. pruning and dragging debris away. The results were definitely worth the effort, the hulking old logging gear was ready for it's close-up shot. Videos of the this site are here.. Press on the "YouTube" logo to get a bigger image. When you get to the YouTube site...then you can press the icon for "full screen" When you are done looking at these photos, and have a few minutes to spare...here is a link to a story that was on the front page of the Province newspaper on May 13 2012. It's a tale about a tragic workplace death of a friend of mine at Toba Inle...
Read more

The Mexican Billionaires Yacht, The Golden Cell

By Mike Pearson
Image
In the 90's I got into scuba diving to solve some problems at work. I had been  building docks,boathouses and the like for a few years (loved every minute of it)...when it came time to do various underwater chores...the divers that got hired were just not up to the task....they were good divers,but not great at working underwater. Keep in mind these are pre-regulation days in light commercial diving. The joys of work dives   frozen fresh water on top of sea water Diver Mike  So I decided ...I'll just do it myself. I signed up for a scuba course in Sechelt and met a man who would go on to be a huge factor in some great future times....Bill Brooks. I'll leave those tales for another time. Flash forward a few years...Bill and I have salvaged sunken boom boats, a slew of pleasure boats at the bottom of a damaged marina and had experimented with dives past 200ft.  By the time of this story rolls around I'm an establish local work diver. In the cou...
Read more

Scaling Bar for an Excavator

By Mike Pearson
Image
From time to time, the usual attachments and ideas don't work anymore. Scaling loose rock at the max reach and height of an excavator boom/stick is dangerous and nerve racking work. The possibility of doing damage to the machine, and having a chunk of rock come through you window are fairly high. Here are a few pics of a successful design of a scaling bar attachment that was built for 345/450 sized machines. The thick wall round tube design is much stronger and rigid than any size of I-beam or H-beam designs. I have used I/H-beam scaling bars...and the first thing they do is flex like a wet spaghetti noodle. We had a 12 inch I-beam bar on a 200 Hitachi, and it bent easily with very little torque applied. The round  model in the photos has a replaceable tube that is held in by a pin. Here's a few things that I have learned about excavator scaling bars. 1. It's dangerous work. b. Put your best guy on the job c. Put you ugliest machine under him ( you will hit the ...
Read more