Fine for director who instructed employee to place safety boots at the scene of a fatal workplace accident

SINGAPORE: A director of a company was fined S$8,000 (US$6,000) on Thursday (Mar 20) after he instructed an employee to tamper with the scene of a fatal workplace accident. 

Lim Choon Hwee, 49, was a director at Dyna-Log Singapore, a company which provided logistical services, including the loading, unloading and transportation of containers, at the time of the fatality in 2018. The company operated out of the West Connect Building in Boon Lay. 

Dyna-Log Singapore was fined S$200,000 over the accident, which resulted in the death of one of its employees. 

Lim and Dyna-Log Singapore were both handed a charge under the Workplace Safety and Health Act. He pleaded guilty to his charge while also pleading guilty to the company’s charge as its representative.

Lim’s charge was for modifying the scene of the accident by instructing a controller from the company to replace the slippers that the worker had been wearing with a pair of safety boots. 

The company’s charge was for failing to ensure that safety measures were taken. This included failing to ensure that adequate risk assessment and safe work instructions were conducted and established in respect of collection, delivery or forklift operations, and failing to communicate existing risk assessment and safe work instructions to employees performing such work. 

The employee who died was Mr Yong Him Chong, an operations manager at Dyna-Log Singapore. 

On Nov 22, 2018, Mr Yong was standing behind a container to check and verify its contents. As part of his job, Mr Yong was going to tally the load.

He operated a forklift to clear things stored near the container and opened its right door to take photos of the goods. When he opened the container’s left door, however, a bundle of rubber sheets weighing 577kg toppled out and pinned him to the ground. 

He was found by co-workers but later pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. 

An autopsy found that Mr Yong had died from traumatic asphyxia – or suffocation – consistent with him having been pinned down by a heavy object.

Based on photographs taken by Mr Yong just before the incident, the bundle that pinned him down was not stacked in a stable manner and was likely displaced during transit, according to court documents. 

During the accident, Mr Yong was wearing a pair of slippers, which contravened Dyna-Log Singapore’s safety measures. 

Lim instructed the controller to place a pair of safety boots near Mr Yong’s body and to bring his slippers to their office. 

Closed-circuit television footage captured the controller bringing a pair of safety boots to the accident scene and leaving with a pair of slippers. 

Investigations found that Dyna-Log Singapore had conducted a risk assessment and established safe work instructions for collection, delivery and forklift operations at the workplace. However, none of the control measures were complied with, and Mr Yong had not been briefed on the potential hazards associated with accessing a vehicle deck and its load. 

A Ministry of Manpower prosecutor said that Lim had instructed the controller to place the boots near Mr Yong’s body to mislead investigators by tampering with the accident scene. 

However, Lim’s lawyer Anand George from IRB Law said that describing this as an attempt to mislead the authorities was “going too far”. He sought a S$5,000 fine for Lim and a S$100,000 fine for the company. 

District Judge Salina Ishak said that deterrence was the primary sentencing consideration.

She noted how Lim had personally instructed the controller to place the pair of safety boots at the scene of the accident and bring Mr Yong’s slippers to the office, which had the effect of modifying the scene.

She agreed with the prosecution that this was a “clear attempt to mislead investigators” by tampering with the scene, compromising the investigative process. 

This could potentially hamper efforts to protect workers’ lives and could embolden others to similarly attempt to evade responsibility, Judge Salina added. 

In all, such acts could erode the effectiveness of the Workplace Safety and Health Act, she said.