Employer who provided bucket in van for use as toilet is sued for $4M over death of worker
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Andrew Lane needed to use the toilet while on the job for an Oregon company that provided pressure-washing and gutter-cleaning services to homeowners.
But his employer, Superior Home Maintenance, provided only a bucket for that purpose. And, when Lane stepped into the back of the work truck where the bucket was located one day last year, he died of carbon monoxide poisoning next to a pressure washer bolted to the truck’s floor that emits the colorless, odorless gas, says a complaint (PDF) filed Monday in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
“They were told not to use homeowners’ bathrooms,” his estate’s lawyer, Thomas D’Amore, tells the Oregonian.
The suit, which alleges violation of products liability laws by Superior and other companies, as well as failure to comply with laws requiring employers to provide adequate restroom facilities for workers, seeks $4 million in damages. State regulators found that the pressure washer filled the truck with a toxic level of carbon monoxide in less than a minute, the newspaper reports.
In a letter sent last year to the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division, Superior’s owner contested the claimed cause of Lane’s death, saying that his methamphetamine use was primarily responsible.
Steve Frick also wrote that another company, which is also named as a defendant in this week’s lawsuit, had installed the pressure washer bolted to the floor of his truck. That company, Frick said “is currently installing these systems in trucks today” and “there are hundreds of these systems around the state currently running in the same configuration as mine was.”
