Construction Manager Sentenced to Prison in Historic Jobsite Fatality Case

Metro Construction project manager Vadim Kazenelson has been found guilty of four counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count of criminal negligence causing bodily injury and sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Four workers died and one was critically injured after falling 13 stories from a scaffold outside a Toronto apartment building in 2009.  

The construction company was working on apartment balcony repairs at the time of the accident. The four men who died were not attached to a safety line.

The historic case marks the first time a supervisor in Canada has been sentenced to prison for the on-the-job death of a worker.

Metron Construction pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death in 2012 and ordered to pay a $750,000 fine — the highest fine in Canadian history for criminal corporate liability. In addition, the company owner was ordered to pay $112,500 after pleading guilty to four OSHA violations.

(more on the historic criminal corporate liability case...)