Trinity installs residential solar panels with thousands of employees throughout New York, New Jersey and other neighboring states. On any given day, Trinity would have 500 to 700 installers. Trinity had a safety program that included a written safety manual, on-site audits, training and the disciplinary policy.

Trinity provided safety equipment items that were stored on its trucks, which included special ladders. Upon hiring, employees would receive the company safety manual which included various topics such as job hazard analysis, personal protective equipment, hand and power tools, ladders, fall protection, trenching, hand and power tools, etc.

Employees would also receive a two-page pamphlet summarizing safety rules that would include topics such as fall protection, hard hats, lifting techniques, site cleaning, etc. Employees would also receive training during orientation through videos, PowerPoint presentations and quizzes that verify that certain training had been understood. Trinity would also conduct safety refreshers on a quarterly basis with all employees.

Trinity safety rules required employees to wear hard hats when someone was working on the roof overhead and for workers to be securely anchored with fall-arrest equipment during work on a pitched roof. A supposed strict disciplinary policy was also in effect that included a mandatory three-day unpaid suspension on the first offense, which then included retraining to ensure that the employee understood; a second offense resulted in mandatory employment termination.

Trinity ran an audit safety program, which included conducting site safety observations at work sites, stopping and correcting work and documenting them on observation forms. During these meetings recordable and non-recordable injuries for the prior month would be reviewed and changes would be made accordingly to work rules. Trinity even had a safety committee that would meet monthly and include safety coordinators from all the regional offices, regional vice presidents and other representatives.

On Nov. 23, 2022, Trinity’s crew leader was Austin Tyler who oversaw six crew members. The job consisted of the installation of 12 solar panels on the roof of a two-story home with a pitch of 34 degrees. Three members of the crew worked from the roof surface while the other three crew members and Mr. Tyler worked on the ground. At certain times, Mr. Tyler was working in the home’s basement performing certain electrical work. Although in the beginning of the workday, all employees wore personal fall-arrest harnesses at some point, the three workers assigned to work from the ground took off their fall-arrest harnesses. The installation of solar panels included the initial prep work that consisted of removing the shingles, and installing railings to lay the panels using pry bars, drills and hammers. Ladders were used to access the roof from the ground and each solar panel would be carried up the ladder by a crew member and then passed on to the worker on the roof. The solar panels weighed about 48 pounds. One of the roof crew members, Mr. Rivera would take the roof panel and pass it along to another roof crew member who would carry it over the roof’s peak to install.

Mr. Tyler admitted that the hard hats had not been distributed and everyone was working all day, and specifically, the ground crew was without head protection despite work rules mandating that hard hats are to be worn when there is a danger of falling objects from the roofs.

Depending on the degree of the roof’s pitch, Trinity would utilize a Y strap configuration with a fixed length rope attaching to the front of the harness or a “shock pack” that attached to the back, which decelerated and then stopped the fall when in use. The OSHA inspector took photographs that showed two employees on the roof who were wearing fall arrest harnesses but a third employee, Mr. Cesar, a member of the ground crew was not. Photographs specifically showed Mr. Cesar carrying a solar panel up the ladder, stepping onto the roof and carrying it over the roof without fall protection. Moreover, the two roof crew members who wore fall arrest harnesses were not consistently tied off.

During later testimony, it also became clear that Trinity’s disciplinary policy was not strictly enforced because it would contribute to difficulty in hiring and retaining workers. Although Trinity provided evidence of disciplining the employees from this particular incident, they had no other evidence of prior discipline at job sites where audits had revealed violations of safety rules, even when records showed that specific employees had violated rules on multiple occasions.

Trinity conceded liability but contested the penalty amount of $98,216, which was ultimately reduced to $88,394.

About the author: Costas Cyprus, Esq., practices construction law and commercial litigation with Welby, Brady & Greenblatt, LLP, in White Plains, NY. He can be reached at 914-428-2100 or [email protected]. Articles in this series do not constitute legal advice and are intended for general guidance only.