THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 16, 1996 TAG: 9602160494
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
A judge dismissed all citations against Dorey Electric Co. on Thursday in connection with the 1990 electrocution of a Dorey apprentice.
After a three-day trial, Circuit Judge John C. Morrison Jr. ruled that Dorey did not violate any state safety laws when apprentice Lester G. Hales II was killed May 1, 1990, after cutting into a live wire at Norfolk International Airport.
The state Labor Department had cited Dorey for eight safety violations and slapped the company with a $68,000 civil penalty.
Just before trial, however, the state dropped one citation. Morrison dismissed two others Wednesday in midtrial. He dismissed the rest Thursday after all the evidence was presented.
Morrison ruled that the Labor Department did not have enough evidence to back up its citations. He said Dorey had an adequate safety plan and had done everything it could to guard against such an accident.
Dorey has said all along that Hales' death was the result of human error, that Hales failed to test the 2,300-volt wire before cutting into it. Several witnesses said this was a cardinal rule in the electrical industry.
Hales, 25, was a fourth-year apprentice, a few weeks short of his journeyman certification.
``Unfortunately, this man didn't follow the simple industry rule and Dorey's safety rule,'' Dorey's chief attorney, Guilford D. Ware, said after the ruling. ``He was a good man, a good apprentice, a good employee. But this one time he failed to follow the rules.''
The Labor Department had argued that Dorey's foreman was responsible for the electrocution. Investigators said the foreman sent Hales into a dark, wet manhole at night with no flashlight and no meter to test if the wire was live, and ordered Hales to cut the line. The company was repairing taxiway lights.
The foreman, however, testified Thursday that Hales had at least one flashlight, perhaps two. He said he also thought Hales had an amp probe to test the wire.
Only two people witnessed the electrocution: the foreman and another apprentice. Both testified, but each offered a different version.
The apprentice, Roy Hanbury, said foreman Steve Bates ordered Hales to cut the wire without first testing the line or making sure that Hales had tested it.
Bates, however, testified that he told Hales to cut the wire only after Hales shouted out from the manhole that ``he had it.'' The foreman assumed that that meant Hales had found the dead wire that was supposed to be spliced.
Bates also testified that there was sufficient lighting inside the manhole, that the wires were properly tagged at their source and that he did not have to test the hole for toxic gases because it was not a ``confined space'' under state law. The Labor Department had charged Dorey with all these violations.
A safety expert hired by Dorey for the trial, Charles K. Klein of Newport News, also testified Thursday that Dorey committed no safety violations. He said Hales died because he violated the industry's cardinal rule by not testing the wire, even if he was only an apprentice.
``The lowliest worker looks in the chamber of a gun before he puts it in his mouth and pulls the trigger,'' Klein testified.
After the judge's ruling, Hales' distraught parents, Sandi and Lester ``Buddy'' Hales, dashed from the courtroom screaming. ``Money talks and bull---- walks!'' Buddy Hales shouted in the hallway.
The Hales' family tried to sue Dorey, but failed. State law generally forbids employees from suing their employers.
The Labor Department now will turn its attention to a second case against Dorey involving an apprentice's death. It centers on the 1992 death of Scott Roberson, 23, who was run over by a cement truck on Interstate 64.
In that case, inspectors cited Dorey for seven safety violations and assessed a $21,300 civil penalty. There is no trial date yet.
KEYWORDS: TRIAL ACCIDENT GENERAL by CNB