WHAT HAPPENED

A worker at an Alberta sweet well site is found suffocated to death in a trailer. The problem began when a meter on a horizontal pressure vessel used to measure the well’s service flow rate malfunctioned and had to be replaced. The supervisor told the worker to remove some of the bolts from the meter run and back pressure valve and leave the components in place. But the worker disobeyed instructions and removed all the bolts, as well as the meter run and back valve.  The well owner is convicted of not doing everything reasonably practicable to protect the worker. The company appeals.

WHO WON?

The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench rules that the company showed due diligence and overturns the conviction.

EXPLANATION

The risk of a leaking pipe might be foreseeable, the court says. But the cause of the leak in this particular case—the worker’s disobedience of the supervisor’s clear order not to remove the bolts—wasn’t foreseeable:

• Although he was young, the worker had been trained on confined spaces and the dangers of various gases at wells;
• The supervisor gave him very explicit instructions not to remove the components and repeated them several times.
• The worker had always followed his supervisor’s instructions before and there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t do so again; and
• The worker had no experience dismantling a vessel like this one and knew professionals were on their way to do the job.

CITE

R. v. Lonkar Well Testing Ltd., [2009] A.J. No. 604, June 5, 2009, see http://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2009/2009abqb345/2009abqb345.html.

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