Manufacturer pleads guilty in worker death case

Washington — A Delaware corporation has pleaded guilty to willfully violating an OSHA safety regulation in connection with an employee death at its plant in Grove City, OH.

Zachary Ledbetter, 20, was working as a batch operator at the Fabcon Precast LLC facility, which manufactures precast concrete panels. On June 6, 2020, the pneumatic discharge door on a concrete mixer failed to close after releasing a batch of concrete. An exhaust valve that released the pneumatic energy powering the discharge door had broken off months earlier, a Department of Justice press release notes, and hadn’t been replaced – rendering the door inoperable.

When Ledbetter, who had been on the job for six months, attempted to free the door, it closed on his head and trapped him. He was eventually freed but died five days later.

Fabcon pleaded guilty to a Class B misdemeanor in a federal court in the Southern District of Ohio. DOJ notes that a Class B misdemeanor “is the only federal criminal charge covering such workplace safety violations.”