The firm handed the job to a trained supervisor. It didn't hand off the liability
A construction employer tried to shift the blame for a workplace safety penalty onto a trained supervisor it had put in charge and later fired. A British Columbia tribunal disagreed, ruling that a supervisor's failure on site is the company's failure too.
In a decision dated June 11, 2026, a three-member Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal panel of Anand Banerjee, Scott Ferguson, and Jennifer Perry upheld a $10,000 administrative penalty against a siding contractor. Three of its workers had been doing exterior work about 24 feet above the ground with no fall protection when a WorkSafeBC officer arrived.
An inspection with a familiar problem
On October 18, 2024, a Board occupational safety officer inspected the contractor's worksite and found three workers installing exterior siding on a three-story wood frame residential building from a ladder jack scaffold roughly 24 feet up, none of them using fall protection. The officer noted that fall protection equipment had been made available on site, and that the workers and their supervisor were aware the law required it at that height.
It was not the first time. The employer had been cited under the same fall protection section twice in 2022, drawing penalties of $2,500 and $5,000, and had been cited for a similar violation back in 2019. After the October inspection, the Board imposed a $10,000 penalty in December 2024, and a review officer confirmed it in June 2025.
The contractor questioned whether the risk was really high, arguing the scaffold was flat and the weather that day was sunny and dry. The officer's account differed, describing cold, windy conditions that turned to rain as an atmospheric river moved in. The panel accepted the officer's evidence and found that a fall of about 24 feet created a high risk of catastrophic or fatal injury.
Supervisor’s responsibility
Much of the appeal turned on who was responsible. The company's principal said he had left the site and handed supervision to a fully trained employee who understood the fall protection rules but did not enforce them. The firm argued it was being penalized for the conduct of others and that any violation order should have been written against the supervisor and workers personally.
The panel was not persuaded. Its jurisdiction, it said, was limited to whether this employer should have received the penalty, and the possibility that another party also bore responsibility did not reduce the employer's own liability. The Regulation deems a contravention to be the employer's, and long-standing agency principles tie a supervisor's conduct back to the company that put him in charge.
The panel stated the principle directly, finding that "a failing of the supervisor at the worksite is a failing of the employer at the worksite." Delegating day-to-day authority, it held, did not shift the legal obligation away from the firm.
Why the firing came too late
The employer also said it had met its obligations by training its workers, supplying equipment and relying on a competent supervisor. The panel found that fell short of due diligence. There was no evidence of regular site inspections, safety meetings, spot-checks of the supervisor, or a disciplinary program for crews that ignored the rules.
The firm had terminated the supervisor after the incident, but the panel noted that conduct after a violation cannot establish the diligence required before it. It also set aside pleas based on financial hardship, which came without supporting evidence, and a clean injury record, which the panel suggested could reflect little more than good luck.
For an employer with a repeat history, the panel said, oversight needed to be tighter rather than lighter, adding that "The possibility that a supervisor may be lax or irresponsible is well within the reasonable contemplation of any employer." The appeal was denied and the $10,000 penalty confirmed, with no order made on appeal expenses.
