A B.C. construction company has been fined $25,000 and its principal sentenced to 14 days in jail for continuing to violate the province's Workers Compensation Act despite two previous court decisions against them.
In a decision issued May 18 and posted online Thursday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Sheila Tucker found G & D Construction Ltd. and Dalwinder Singh Kandola in contempt of court.
It's the second time the company and its director have been found in contempt for violating a 2017 court order requiring them to comply with the act.
The first contempt finding came in November 2020 and resulted in fines of $4,000 to both Kandola and the company.
The latest court decision came as a result of violations observed by WorkSafeBC inspectors at G & D construction sites in Surrey and Mission last year.
At the Surrey site, which an occupational safety officer visited on Jan. 5, 2021, WorkSafeBC noted the following violations of the Workers Compensation Act and related regulations, according to Tucker's decision:
An officer visited the Mission site on Oct. 6, 2021 and found the following violations, Tucker wrote:
Kandola and G & D conceded that this conduct occurred, and that it was a violation of the 2017 court order against them, according to Tucker's decision.
In his defence, Kandola noted that he and the company had paid all the previous fines against them, including administrative penalties related to the violations at the Surrey and Mission sites.
He also argued that none of his workers had filed any workers' compensation claims, and that the company completed framing work on nine residential construction projects during 2021, and was only penalized for violations related to two of them.
Tucker was not persuaded by his arguments.
"While the respondents conceded the breaches before me and took responsibility for them in that limited sense, no remorse was expressed," the judge wrote.
"Further, the respondents wrongly characterize the breaches as minor in number and severity. The argument that GDCL was 'only' found in contemptuous breach of the 2017 order at two of nine total 2021 project sites demonstrates a failure to grasp the significance of the misconduct at issue."
She also noted that the 2021 infractions were the same as or "very similar" to those that resulted in the previous contempt finding and the 2017 order.
"The fact that the breaches continue to involve conduct of similar kind and similar risk speaks to the measure of defiance involved," Tucker wrote.
"The evidence before me indicates that no genuine shift in attitude had taken place. Following (the previous) decisions, the respondents continued to view the fines imposed for its unsafe practices as an acceptable trade-off for the project efficiencies it gained thereby."
For this reason, Tucker concluded that a "step up" in punishment was necessary. She ordered the company to pay a $25,000 fine, due within 60 days, and sentenced Kandola to 14 days of incarceration.
WorkSafeBC initially petitioned the court for an order prohibiting Kandola and G & D from continuing to operate their business, but it dropped that petition at the hearing on the case, Tucker wrote.
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