Personal Injury Law

Death by Chocolate Results in Personal Injury Lawsuit

By Michael

A personal injury lawsuit was filed in early January against a Camden, PA.-based chocolate plant after a worker was killed last summer when he fell into a vat used to melt chocolate.

Vincent Smith II, 29, was working at the Lyons and Sons chocolate plant on July 8, according to CBS. Officials said at the time that Smith was standing on a nine-foot-tall platform while loading solid pieces of raw cocoa into a melting vat when he fell into the container.

While the chocolate?s temperature was believed to be about 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the chocolate was not responsible for his death. Smith was struck in the head by an agitator, a large paddle-shaped object used to move the chocolate while it melts, and suffered fatal injuries because of the blow, according to CBS.

Attorney Thomas Kline, who is representing Smith?s relatives, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that several security measures were missing near the vat. He said no guardrails were placed around the vat, the floors nearby where slick with melted chocolate, no equipment was nearby for workers to try to get him out of the vat, and no emergency shut off was installed on the platform, according to the Inquirer.

The suit was announced just after the plant and the company Smith was working for were fined about $39,000 for an array of safety violations. Smith?s employer, Cocoa Services, was also named in the family?s lawsuit, as well as other contractors who designed and constructed the plant.

?This was a sure death,? Kline told the Inquirer. ?When he fell in, he stood no chance of survival.?

Inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration placed the recent fines on the plant for failure to meet the security measures described by Kline.

Right after Smith?s death, the plant was shut down and fined about $1,150 for operating without a mercantile license. Inspectors also found problems with plumbing and electrical systems in the plant. Officials representing the plant had said before the inspection that those areas were fixed, according to the Inquirer.

?This worker was unknowingly invited into a death trap,? Kline said to the Inquirer. ?They ignored any rule of occupational safety or common sense.?

Officials from Lyons and Cocoa services declined to comment to the Pennyslvania newspaper.

“My brother was a very careful guy,? Smith?s brother Carl Smith told ABC shortly after the accident. ?Come to find out they say it could have been carelessness on his part? That’s not his character at all.”

Full post as published by The Injury Blog on January 31, 2010 (boomark / email).