Anchorage, AL, based Hartman Construction is challenging the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development's $560,000 fine in the case of the death of a 23-year-old worker. State officials say company workers fatally injured the young man last year when they used heavy equipment to dig him out of a collapsed trench last year.
According to officials, the worker, Samuel Morgan, was standing in a 7-foot-deep trench that collapsed as workers were laying sewer pipe. Morgan was buried up to the waist. According to investigators, the company's co-owner and other workers used two excavators to attempt to dig Morgan out, but he died at the scene from injuries an autopsy determined "resulted from being struck by construction equipment."
Hartman Construction officials have not commented on their contesting of the fines.
(more on the Hartman Construction case and review of fines...)
