Vancouver Sun | Susan Lazaruk | Published Dec 12, 2025
Pipelayer Jeff Caron was killed when he was pinned by collapsed retaining wall
An excavating company in charge of a Burnaby work site where a pipelayer was killed when a retaining wall collapsed has been found guilty of criminal negligence.
Three seniors officers of J. Cote and Son Excavating of Langley, including owner James (Jamie) Cote and job foreman David John Green, were collectively found guilty on Thursday in B.C. Supreme Court in the death of pipelayer Jeff Caron, 25, and the injuring of pipelayer Thomas Richer.
But Green, who was also charged individually with manslaughter, was found not guilty of that charge and of a separate criminal negligence charge, Justice Michael Brundrett said in a judgment that took three hours to read.
Caron was killed when he was pinned by collapsed wall. Richer, who was also in the trench but further from the wall, was injured, during work for a Burnaby city sewer project in October 2012.
Prosecutor Louisa Winn had charged Green with manslaughter and the company with criminal negligence based on evidence that included Richer’s testimony that alleged safety violations were ignored by Green, including a crack in the wall of the trench, and that Green ran from the scene after the collapse.
Brundrett rejected both those statements and accepted only Richer’s testimony that was corroborated by other witnesses, including that the company failed to hold the regular staff safety meetings that are the norm in the industry.
And he found the company falsely relied on a safety certificate that had been issued earlier in October 2012 that wasn’t specific to the excavation project.
The company, “bears a responsibility for the collective failure of its senior officers to foresee and prevent the collapse of the retaining wall,” he said, naming “primarily Mr. Green” but also Jamie Cote and a third senior officer.
Omissions by its senior officers include a “failure to adopt a more proactive approach to safety, to appreciate the stability or unknown instability of the retaining wall, to better educate its workers, to distribute an up-to-date safety manual, to implement effective safety means” and to accurately interpret the Oct. 2 certificate.
“That failure amounts to a collectively inadequate response to trench safety, attributable to J. Cote,” he said.
“I find beyond a reasonable doubt that this conduct collectively represents a substantial departure from the expected norm and is properly characterized as a reckless disregard for the lives and safety of the workers in the trench in the circumstances,” he said.
Before pronouncing Green not guilty of his individual charges because as foreman he lacked the authority to create company policy, Brundrett said, “Mr. Green’s role was skill-specific and more limited than that of a superintendent or an owner in that he did not have the ability … to determine the company’s overall approach to safety.”
If convicted of manslaughter, Green faced jail or prison. The company faces a fine when it’s sentenced in January.
The criminal charges were possible under a rarely used law passed in 2004 to establish criminal liability of corporations for workplace deaths and injuries. It’s referred to as the Westray law after a 1992 explosion in the Westray coal mine in Nova Scotia. Despite employees, the union and government inspectors raising safety concerns before the deadly blast there, a police investigation and a public inquiry, no one was held accountable for the deaths.
It’s only the third time the law has been used in a prosecution in B.C., according to Canadian Occupational Safety’s online magazine.
In an article on the R vs. J. Cote trial, it said the law was designed to target negligence at all levels of an organization, from job site supervisors to corporate executives, and is being closely watched by workplace safety professionals.
It said it “raises questions about the role of engineering oversight in construction safety and the division of responsibility among supervisors, engineers and corporate leadership.”
J. Cote and Son Excavating was the primary contractor on the job and had been brought on by Vector Engineering, the primary consultant on the project, court heard.
Burnaby RCMP laid the charges in 2023, and WorkSafeBC had earlier prepared a report on the accident.