legal developments Safety insight: Proceed cautiously before terminating a crew member who recently reported a potential safety violation – the dismissal could run afoul of state or federal whistleblower- protection regulations. What happened: A worker noticed that one of his colleagues was standing underneath a load that had been raised onto the forks of a forklift. He let the colleague’s supervisor know about the potential safety violation. What people did: About one week later, the staffer who’d reported the safety problem was told that he was being investigated for harassing and targeting a coworker – the employee who committed the safety violation. When the worker met with his supervisor to discuss his report of the safety problem, he was berated and told to admit that he’d bullied a coworker, but he refused to admit to anything. After the meeting, the staffer was suspended. During his suspension, he emailed a top-level executive to complain that he was being targeted for reporting a safety problem. He pointed out that he’d never been cited for poor performance during his 25 years with the organization. Nevertheless, the crew member was fired a short time later for alleged performance problems. Legal challenge: The man sued for whistleblower retaliation. Result: The company lost. The court said a jury should decide whether the staffer was let go because he reported a safety violation. The man demonstrated that the claim of poor performance used to justify his dismissal might have been pretextual. The skinny: Companies that think it’s OK to fire staffers who’ve expressed concerns about potential safety problems rarely get a sympathetic ear in court. Cite: Wimmer v. New Millennium Building, U.S. District Court, W.D. Virginia, No. 7:25-cv-599, 2/10/26. horror stories Summary A man who hadn’t been trained in safety procedures was fatally pinned between a garbage truck and a pole. The incident A three-person crew working for the Baltimore, MD, Department of Public Works (DPW) was assigned to pick up garbage cans that had been placed by residents at the end of a long, narrow alleyway. One of the men was operating the vehicle while the other two were picking up the garbage cans and dumping their contents into the truck’s compactor. Even though the DPW was in the process of developing procedures for removing garbage from tight alleyways, the men hadn’t been trained to walk behind the truck to allow the driver to see them in the rearview mirror. Because there was only 7.2 inches of clearance between the truck and the walls, the driver slowly backed the vehicle down the alleyway. As he was doing so, one of the workers, Timothy Cartwell, walked to the side of the vehicle. Without warning, Cartwell was pinned between the garbage truck and a telephone pole. The response Cartwell screamed in agony and told the driver to move the truck forward. The driver did so, and Cartwell slumped to the ground. He was taken to the hospital, but he’d suffered a pelvic fracture, gone into cardiac arrest and lost multiple units of blood. He was declared dead later that day. The aftermath Following the incident, Cartwell’s family called for the DPW to finish developing its procedures for picking up garbage cans in alleyways. “We don’t want anything to happen to any other family,” said Cartwell’s brother Cornelius Carroll. “We just want things done in the way they should be. Safety measures have to be adhered to. People have to be held accountable for their actions.” February 23, 2026 Safety Alert for Supervisors 3 You make the call: The decision (See case on page 1) No. The company lost. The court upheld the citation. According to the judge, the exemption cited by the employer to justify the man’s failure to wear safety gear didn’t apply. Reason: The exemption could only be used when there was no other work taking place at the elevated location at the same time. In this case, the job had already started and there were several other crew members laboring within 10 feet of the unsecured staffer. Because the work had already begun, the exemption wasn’t applicable and the citation was justified. What it means: Ensure everyone communicates Of course you can’t expect workers laboring at an elevated location to put on safety equipment before the anchor points for the gear have been established. However, a haphazard approach to the installation of the anchor points is likely to backfire. In this case, the anchor points were being identified after the work had already started, which means that the staffers laboring at the elevated location weren’t protected. Better: Make sure your crew members adequately communicate so that work is never allowed to begin at an elevated location until after the anchor points have been set up. Based on Wayne’s Roofing Inc. v. Washington State Department of Labor & Industries. Retaliation? Man fired after he reported safety violation In tight alleyway, man fatally pinned against pole by truck