Judge Sharon D. Calhoun, an Administrative Law Judge, confirmed penalties imposed by OSHA against Mar-Jac Poultry arising from a fatality at the Hattiesburg, MS plant in 2021. In this case, a night shift worker was killed after entanglement while cleaning an eviscerator. The Court supported the findings of OSHA that there was inadequate protective guarding around the machine and that the company was liable despite the fact that the decedent was inebriated. The 2021 case followed a previous fatality in the plant during late 2020. Penalties of $13,000 were imposed for each of the deaths.
It would appear that Mar-Jac has a problem in its plant given that a 16-year-old boy died recently from injuries sustained during cleaning. The Department of Labor and the Department of Justice are investigating human trafficking and employment of minors in hazardous situations in the meatpacking and poultry industries. Both civil and criminal cases are anticipated as a result of this series of possibly avoidable deaths in the Mar-Jac plant.