Opens a new company instead
It seems the state of Florida isn’t the only authority with trouble regulating roofers who don’t follow the law. A Jacksonville roofer is accused of skipping out on paying more than $2 million in penalties levied by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for safety violations at his job sites. His excuse? He was essentially too traumatized to worry about it.
OSHA had issued citations in 2017 and 2018 against Great White Construction Inc. and its owner Travis Slaughter, for various workplace safety violations described as “egregious, willful and repeat violations for lack of fall safety protection and other safety and health hazards at worksites in Florida.” OSHA levied penalties of $2,202,049. Despite numerous legal notices, OSHA claims the company not only failed to pay the penalties, but continued to violate safety rules at worksites. Only after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held him in contempt of court in January, did Slaughter respond.
In a filing, he said he had closed Great White Construction and in the meantime, lost documents related to the case and didn’t remember receiving copies of the past court orders. He wrote to the court that OSHA “began to unfairly target Great White Construction and assess hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines…the crushing amount of the fines caused me to stop reading any mail or documents from OSHA.”
So what did Slaughter do? He opened up a new roofing company instead. Sound familiar?
OSHA’s Jacksonville Area Director Michelle Gonzalez in court filings noted that inspections of seven of seven worksites since May 2018 resulted in citations for violations similar to those in the previous cases. These include failure to protect company employees from falling more than six feet and other safety violations. The most recent was at a Fleming Island home in January. In fact, Gonzalez referenced City of Jacksonville Building Inspection records as showing that Slaughter’s new company, Flooding Roofing Experts Inc., had been issued 66 permits between January 9-31, 2020.
Now, the U.S. Secretary of Labor has filed a petition for coercive sanctions that include possible incarceration against Great White Construction, Florida Roofing Experts, and Travis Slaughter. If any of you have familiarity with this roofing company, please contact us.
LMA Newsletter of 3-2-20
