Callahan & Blaine

The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has been ordered to pay a $176,000 fine for the electrocution of employee Maximiliano Martinez in Benicia, California earlier this year. Martinez, a PG&E utility worker, was killed while upgrading an underground transformer with 12,000 volt power lines feeding into the vault that held the transformer. Martinez, age 26, was pronounced dead at the scene.

After reviewing the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal-OSHA) report on the incident, the California Department of Industrial Relations levied the $176,000 fine. Cal-OSHA found PG&E was lax on enforcement of safety rules and had committed a “serious, willful accident-related” violation of safety rules. According to Cal-OSHA, a “willful violation” occurs “where evidence shows that the employer committed an intentional and knowing … violation and the employer is conscious of the fact that what he is doing constitutes a violation of safety law.”

Martinez’ death is the sixth PG&E death investigated by Cal-OSHA. The utility was fined almost $40,000 in a 2008 electrocution. So far, PG&E has not commented on the fine.

PG&E’s overall safety record has been called into question recently by the gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California that killed seven people.

Callahan & Blaine is one of the leading catastrophic injury firms in the state of California. In the last five years alone our lawyers have obtained over $1.2 billion in verdicts and settlements, including a $7 million settlement for a cyclist who was left with a traumatic brain injury after being struck by a newspaper delivery truck, and a $7.25 million settlement in a case when a man was run over trying to board a city bus in Orange County, California.

Our success in litigating and negotiating personal injury cases comes from our uncommon approach; we handle each personal injury case as though it were a complex business litigation case, attacking it from every angle possible. While our firm is located in Orange County, California, we handle serious personal injury, wrongful death and product liability cases nationwide.

If you or someone you know has suffered a catastrophic injury or died as the result of an accident at the workplace, please contact our California law firm for expert legal counsel.