$74,000 fine proposed for roofer after a worker’s fatal fall from a Broward mansion

A previously-fined Pompano Beach roofer repeated the safety violation, which led to the death of a 25-year-old employee working on a Davie mansion, the U.S. Department of Labor’s OSHA arm alleges.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration wants to fine J & L Roofing, a company run by president Juan Alcocer and vice president Maria Delgado, $74,751 for four workplace safety violations after the January tragedy. Two of the violations are classified as Other-Than-Serious, one violation is classified as Serious and still another is classified as Willful.

OSHA calls a Willful violation “a violation in which the employer either knowingly failed to comply with a legal requirement (purposeful disregard) or acted with plain indifference to employee safety.”

Phone messages left at numbers given for Alcocer and Delgado weren’t answered.

Back in 2018, J & L Roofing paid a $3,880 fine for failure to provide fall protection on a low-slope roof at a two-story condominium in Tamarac. This Jan. 19, J & L had people working atop a five-bedroom, six-bathroom, 5,177-sq. ft. home in Stonebrook Estates in Davie.

The Citation and Notification of Penalty says “employees were exposed to a 25-foot fall hazard when engaged in roofing activities of a two-story residence with a roof pitch of 5:12, without a means of fall protection.”

That’s the Willful violation. OSHA says the worker fell from the roof to a lower level and then to the ground. He was taken to a hospital, where he died 29 days later from his injuries.

The Serious violation dings J & L for not providing effective training for employees in recognizing fall hazards and proper safety procedures.

“Had J & L Roofing Inc. ensured that its workers were protected from the construction industry’s leading cause of death, a young man’s life could have been spared,” said OSHA Area Office Director Condell Eastmond. “Instead, a family and a community are left to grieve and an employer is learning a painful lesson that federal workplace safety standards exist to help prevent needless and unnecessary tragedies.”