Yarmouth Sea Products fined after man fractured skull on fishing boat
Former employee Clayton Joudrey suffered brain injury after incident on board scallop fishing boat
Yarmouth Sea Products will pay a $41,500 fine and is also required to hold two seminars on workplace safety as part of a sentence issued in Yarmouth provincial court Tuesday after an incident on board one of its fishing vessels two years ago.
The company was sentenced by Judge James Burrill after pleading guilty to three charges under the Nova Scotia Occupational Health and Safety Act.
On June 7, 2015, Clayton Joudrey was hit in the head by a metal ring after a cable snapped aboard the Compass Rose II, a scallop fishing boat in the Bay of Fundy.
Joudrey had only been working for the company for 17 days and it was his third trip on the vessel. Joudrey, then 43, suffered a fractured skull, a fractured eye socket and a broken neck.
Joudrey's wife, Noelle Cloutier, said the doctors told her he's in the one percentile of people who survive these kinds of injuries.
'Devastating' injuries
Cloutier and Joudrey were not able to attend Tuesday's sentencing, but in a victim impact statement Joudrey called the effects of the accident "devastating."
The statement outlined the brain damage and chronic pain he suffers. When he reads, he can't remember what he has read two minutes later. He said going back to school to be re-trained would be almost impossible.
He can't drive because he has seizures. He can't play hockey with his 10-year-old son and he can no longer cut firewood to help keep his family warm.
He said he feels a loss of identity as a man because he can no longer work and his wife has two jobs to help support them. He said the family has had to declare bankruptcy since the accident.
Feelings of betrayal
Joudrey also said in his written statement he feels betrayed by the company he worked for.
"I believed Yarmouth Sea Products when they told me that they would stand behind me 100 per cent — that I would always have a job with them. If I could no longer fish, that they would re-train me."
Joudrey said in the statement he called Yarmouth Sea products many times and never heard anything back.
The court heard that Joudrey earned about $3,000 during his 17 days of employment with Yarmouth Sea Products. Now, he receives $248.68 a week in payments from the Workers Compensation Board.
Most of fine goes to safety group
Most of the $41,500 fine will go to the Fisheries Safety Association of Nova Scotia, which will receive $30,000. The provincial government will receive $10,000 and the remaining $1,500 is a victim fine surcharge.
Joudrey won't get any of that money, since it's a fund meant for victims of criminal offences.
The Fisheries Safety Association will use the funds to carry out their safety programs and to print an "On-Board Familiarization and Training" safety checklist sheet that is supposed to be on every vessel.
'Fit and proper sentence'
Lawyer Clifford Hood represented Yarmouth Sea Products and called the sentence "fit and proper" under the circumstances.
Hood said workplace safety is a shared responsibility between an employer and the worker. He pointed out that in this case, Joudrey was standing in the wrong place on the boat when he was injured — a spot he had been told not to stand.
"He, in fact, incurred some responsibility ... I don't want to cast blame. It's a difficult industry to participate in. We all do things on the spur of the moment," Hood said.
No legal obligation for further aid
Hood disagreed with Joudrey's statement that the company abandoned him after he was hurt.
"We participate in the Workers' Compensation Program, which is a program that is 100 per cent funded by industry. The employees don't pay any portion of that premium," he said.
"It does provide him with the benefits that injured workers are entitled to and that's the company's contribution to the situation Mr. Joudrey now finds himself in."
When asked if Yarmouth Sea Products would offer Joudrey any further compensation, Hood said the company has "no legal obligation to do that."
Crown attorney Alex Keaveny agreed the sentence Yarmouth Sea Products received is fair.
"Obviously, there's no dollar amount that's going to be sufficient on a moral level. The Act allows for very high fines but even a fine at the absolute maximum would do nothing to remedy this for Mr. Joudrey," Keaveny said.
Keaveny said the Crown hopes the sentence raises awareness and gives people the incentive to comply with safety standards.
"And that's always the focus of the Crown in sentencing for these offences. We want to use those educative tools and make workplaces actually safer," he said.
Keaveny said it is up to each company if they want to provide financial assistance to injured employees beyond Workers Compensation Board payments.
"Some [companies] do provide assistance and some don't, but ultimately that's going to be up to them ... that is entirely their decision," he said.
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With files from CBC Radio's Mainstreet