United States v. ABC Polymer Industries, LLC

On January 24, 2023, a court sentenced ABC Polymer Industries, LLC to pay a $167,928 fine, and $242,928 in restitution. The company also will complete a two-year term of probation, to include implementing an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) workplace safety compliance plan. The company causing the death of an employee by violating OSHA standards (29 U.S.C. § 666(e)).

ABC Polymer manufactured plastic sheets using assembly lines that pulled the plastic through clusters of large spinning rollers. The machine at issue posed a hazard due to moving roller “pinch points.” OSHA requires this type of machinery to employ guards while the machine is energized. To save time, however, the company, routinely caused employees to run the machine without a proper guard when the rollers were moving. Supervisors instructed the operators to reach between or near the roller drums to cut tangles in the plastic sheet without stopping the line, allowing production to continue.

Despite knowing the machine previously hurt other workers who used it without a proper guard in place, ABC Polymer assigned the victim and others to cut tangles out of plastic sheeting from among the machine’s unguarded spinning rollers with a hand tool. The victim died in August 2017, after becoming entangled in the spinning rollers. The company had a history of nearly two dozen prior injuries from the rollers, including two amputations and multiple other serious injuries requiring hospitalization.