When Should Workplace Deaths Lead to Criminal Actions?
When a Virginia CEO was sentenced to a year of imprisonment after his company’s safety failures were found to have caused the deaths of 29 miners, the story made headlines. The story was newsworthy not because he got such a short sentence of one year for 29 deaths, but because it was so unusual for a CEO to face any type of criminal action as a result of a workplace fatality. Usually, when a worker dies, a New York workers’ compensation law firm can help surviving family members to get benefits and OSHA may institute fines — but this will be the extent of the