RePlanet Convicted in 2013 Crushing Death of Employee

RANCHO CUCAMONGA – RePlanet, one of the largest recyclers in the State of California was convicted and found guilty in connection with the August 20, 2013 crushing death of one of their employees. In July 2016, the company was charged with a violation of worker safety rules which likely caused the death of 61-year-old Salvador Garcia. Garcia who was a truck driver for the company, was crushed by a 35,000-pound earth mover at the 9910 6th Street City of Rancho Cucamonga facility.
District Attorney’s officials said that the criminal plea agreement to the two misdemeanor violations of Labor Code §6425 – willful violation of standard or order causing death or serious injury to employee.  “The plea agreement was made only after rePlanet overhauled their site and work practices in an effort to minimize the risk that a tragedy like this will happen again,” said Lead Deputy District Attorney Douglas Poston who prosecuted the case. “Equipment upgrades, traffic controls, and safety personnel have cost rePlanet well over a million dollars in addition to the fines and payments in this case. We owed it to the victim’s family, one of whom still works there, to do our best to ensure a safe workplace was maintained and justice was done.”

As part of the agreement, rePlanet will be on a three year probation and must pay $500,000.00 restitution to the victim’s family. An additional $400,000 fine is stayed pending successful completion of probation and $21,000 fine is to be paid to the court. In lieu of additional fines, replanet agreed to pay $140,000.00 to the California District Attorneys Association Worker Safety Training Fund and nearly $90,000.00 to Cal-OSHA for fines and training costs.

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