The family of Jean-Philippe Gaudreau, this 36-year-old man who died in 2019 after receiving a piece of a broken round saw blade in the head, is claiming more than $700,000 from the City of Montreal and the three companies that were in charge of the site.
Posted at 1:57 p.m.
“Apart from two orange cones, no public protection measures were in place to limit pedestrian access to the work site and to ensure the safety of passers-by,” insisted the victim’s mother, Diane Pharand and her sister, Sarah-Hélène Gaudreau, in a lawsuit filed in Superior Court in recent days.
According to them, the death of Mr. Gaudreau is directly attributable to “extremely deficient, even non-existent” security measures. “It is therefore a gross fault denoting negligence, unconsciousness and gross negligence”, affirm the two women again.
Jean-Philippe Gaudreau was walking innocently in his own neighborhood, on the Saint-Hubert plaza on August 30, 2019 in the afternoon, when he was fatally injured in the head. It would have been hit by debris projected during the sawing of a piece of concrete by employees of the landscaper Promovert inc. Rushed to hospital in a coma, Mr. Gaudreau then underwent brain surgery, but died the next day.
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Jean-Philippe Gaudreau
One of the labor inspectors dispatched to the site quickly closed the site when he found that it did not comply with safety rules, a report by the Commission for Standards, Equity, occupational health and safety (CNESST).
“Disorderly carelessness”
In her report filed last February, coroner Marie-Pierre Charland concluded that the death was accidental, arguing, however, that the lack of a safety perimeter around the site and the improper use of the saw contributed to the death. of the 36-year-old man.
The mother and sister of the victim, for their part, denounce that the City and the three companies managing the site – it is Eurovia, its subcontractor Bau-Québec and the latter’s subcontractor, Paysagiste Promovert – “demonstrated a wanton and reckless disregard for respecting the rights of others”. Promovert also paid a fine of $2,400 to the CNESST following the events.
What is more, the relatives of the deceased argue that all the stakeholders were nevertheless “in perfect knowledge of the immediate and natural or at least extremely probable consequences that their faulty actions could cause”.
They are claiming the total sum of approximately $719,000 from the City, as well as from the three companies, for various punitive, moral or compensatory damages, in particular for funeral expenses and the emotional and physical pain suffered. The City of Montreal as well as the three companies concerned did not wish to comment on the case on Monday, recalling that it is still in court.
Recommendations
In her report, coroner Charland had recommended that Bau-Québec and Promovert, to “protect the right to life”, “take all necessary measures to ensure the protection of the public during work on a construction site, such as it is provided for in the Safety Code for construction work, in order to prevent such an event from happening again”.
The CNESST had retained three causes to explain the death. First, the concrete saw would have come into contact with metal, and would have been used in an axis of 45 degrees, which did not respect the instructions of the manufacturer of the tool. The prosecution also notes that the saw blade was “mounted upside down in the correct direction of rotation”.
Then, the manufacturer recommended a safety distance of 15 meters around the works, which was not respected. Then, no signs for vehicles or pedestrians were in place, since the workers were making minor corrections, when the work should already have been completed.
With Isabelle Ducas and Philippe Teisceira-Lessard, The Press