Firm Fined $560 in Mishap That Killed 3

The state imposed a $560 fine Friday on a contractor for a violation of safety laws in an accident that left three ironworkers dead.

The accident occurred in December, when the fifth floor of a high-rise building under construction in downtown Los Angeles collapsed under the weight of a stack of too many steel girders.

Beams bolted together as part of the building’s skeletal structure had been supporting the girders, but suddenly gave way. The collapse sent the workers, who had been stacking the one-to-15-ton girders with the aid of a crane, plunging 11 floors to their deaths in the sixth sub-basement.

‘Too Much Weight’

“The cause of the accident was the overloading of the fifth floor of the building with 80 tons of steel columns,” said spokesman Richard Stephens of the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “It was just too much weight.”

A Cal/OSHA district supervisor, Gordon Ostby, said an inspector calculated that the area of the fifth floor that collapsed had been loaded to 1 1/2 to two times its capacity.

The fine was imposed on John F. Beasley Co. of Dallas, the subcontractor in charge of erecting the girders for the office tower at 1000 Wilshire Blvd., between the Los Angeles Hilton and the Harbor Freeway. The fine is technically a proposed penalty, which the Beasley Co. can appeal to a panel of civil servants and gubernatorial appointees.

Attempts to reach a spokesman for the company Friday were unsuccessful.

Determination of Fine

Ostby explained how the fine was determined:

“In this case, we started at a $2,000 base. Then, because the extent of the violation was considered low--just one floor--and the likelihood of injury because of overloading would be moderate, we deducted $500 from the $2,000. Then we adjusted it according to the history, size and good faith of the employer. . . . That brought it down to $1,125. Then, as long as it’s not a repeated or a willful violation, we deduct 50% for abatement. And we round it off to the nearest $5 figure and it comes to $560 for that violation.”

Killed were Edward Leon Winchester, 47, of City of Commerce, the foreman who was directing the stacking of the steel beams for use in building the skeletal structure for the sixth floor, and two men working with him, Michael James Golden, 29, and his brother, Patrick Duane Golden, 28, of Ontario. All were employees of the Beasley company.

Winchester was highly respected, said an official familiar with the case who asked not to be identified. “I think anybody would give a lot to figure out why on that specific day, he decided to put so much (weight) in one spot at one time.”

6 Truckloads of Beams

About six truckloads of beams were stacked, said another official. The usual practice was to stack only one at a time.

The general contractor, Swinerton & Walberg Co., was cited for a less serious safety violation unrelated to the accident--failure to erect a permanent flooring at eight-floor intervals during construction. No fine was imposed. The contractor issued a statement Friday, calling the accident “tragic.”

Cal/OSHA officials imposed a separate $375 fine on the Beasley Co. because officials said workers were observed cleaning up after the accident high above reinforced steel bars planted in the building’s foundation, which had not been covered with guards to prevent impalement.