Milling company to pay $940,000 to settle lawsuit relating to dust explosion that killed five
15 August 2023
Didion Milling Inc. has agreed to pay $940,000 (£740,000) to settle a lawsuit with the state of Wisconsin alleging multiple safety violations at the company’s corn mill where a grain dust explosion killed five employees in May 2017.
Image: US Chemical Safety Board
The Wisconsin Department of Justice sued Didion in November 2020 after state inspections found 31 violations at its mill in the town of Cambria. The alleged violations included failure to inspect equipment, control emissions, detect leaks, and keep accurate reports.
The Justice Department has now asked the Legislature’s finance committee for permission to accept the settlement.
Five Didion Milling employees were killed in the 2017 explosion. In May 2022, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging the company, a company Vice President, two environmental coordinators and three additional supervisors with crimes related to worker safety, fraud, air pollution and obstruction of justice. The charges relate to a grain dust explosion in May 2017 which killed five workers and injured 14 others at Didion Milling in Cambria, Wisconsin.
According to the indictment, Didion Milling wilfully violated two federal safety standards under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) at its plant by failing to develop and implement a written program to effectively prevent and remove combustible grain dust accumulations, as well as failing to install explosion venting or explosion suppression on a dust filter collector. These two failings thereby caused the deaths of five employees due to a combustible dust explosion on 31 May 2017, it concluded.
In a statement, the US Department of Justice said that if convicted of the OSH Act offenses, Didion Milling may be ordered to make restitution to victims as compensation for their financial losses, fined, and sentenced to corporate probation with conditions. If convicted of fraud conspiracy, a defendant may be sentenced to a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years, fined not more than $1 million and ordered to forfeit assets derived from fraud. If convicted of conspiracy to commit federal offenses and other substantive offenses set forth in the indictment, a defendant may face maximum terms of imprisonment ranging from five to 20 years and fines of up to $1 million depending on the crime of conviction.
In a statement sent to local press, Didion Milling called the charges unwarranted and said safety was of the upmost importance to the company. The company called the explosion a “horrible accident, not a criminal act”. The case is set to go on trial in October 2023.
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