An administrative law judge has awarded $1.3 million in punitive damages against an Alabama-based auto parts supplier stemming from the 2016 death of a worker who was crushed at a manufacturing facility in Cusseta, Alabama.
The US Department of Labor announced Wednesday that the hefty fine and lawsuit against Joon LLC, which operates as AJIN USA, was upheld following a review by the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
The company had disputed the workplace citations, which were issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration after a 20-year-old machine operator was fatally crushed in June 2016 while trying to fix a sensor failure inside a robotic cell machine on an assembly line. .
After the workplace death, OSHA cited the company for 51
safety violations, including 48 willful violations.It originally faced $2.5 million in total fines, which had since been reduced.
In September 2020, a federal court in Alabama also ordered AJIN USA to pay a $500,000 fine and $1 million in restitution to the deceased worker’s estate after the company pleaded guilty to a charge of willful violation of an OSHA standard, according to the DOL .
The company, based in Korea, is a global auto parts supplier that has manufacturing facilities in the United States, South Korea, China and Vietnam.
At the time of the 2016 death, the company employed about 700 workers at the Cusseta, Alabama plant.
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