The father of a Calgary woman killed while building a home in Priddis said his family did not get justice or answers during a sentencing hearing last week.
Peggy Sears, 38 of Calgary, was killed when an 820-pound, 17.5-foot tall wall fell on her. She and three other people, including the owner of the framing company, were trying to lift the wall into place. The others decided they could not lift the wall and let it go and got out of the way. Peggy Sears was crushed underneath. She is a mother of four children, aged 22, 17, six and seven, who live in Ontario with their fathers.
John Sears, Peggy’s father, flew from Ontario for the sentencing of Darren McClintock, owner of 938769 Alberta Ltd., a subcontractor hired by BradMar Homes to do the framing on the Priddis home.
McClintock was fined $100,000 and sentenced to 18-months of corporate probation in Turner Valley court Jan. 26.
Sears said he came to the sentencing to speak on behalf of his daughter and grandchildren. He said the sentence was disappointing.
“Here you can just open a company and somebody dies and you get a slap on the wrist,” he said.
Sears said he is frustrated because an RCMP officer originally told him the wall fell from the second floor and landed on Peggy. However, at sentencing court heard Sears stepped in to help the three men lifting the wall. McClintock said Peggy wasn’t involved in a prior discussion where they decided they would count to three and drop the wall if it was too heavy. When the wall became too heavy they discussed what to do and decided to drop the wall, but Peggy was crushed underneath. She had been working as a framer for about eight months, but had been working for this framing company for only two weeks when she was killed. No one was wearing a hard hat.
Sears said he has never received an explanation of why the story changed and was told he would need to make a FOIP request to see the RCMP report. He said he has been asking for information about the case since it happened, but has not received the answers he is looking for.
“I am going home with no more than I came with,” he said. “I’m going home empty handed. Its not fair.”
At sentencing he broke down while reading a victim impact statement, recalling the birth of Peggy, his first child, and then telling the story of how he delivered her first baby when the doctor went for lunch, but couldn’t finish.
“I just can’t do it,” he said, sobbing.
Crown prosecutor James Pickard finished reading the letter, which detailed how Peggy went from living in a shelter as a single mother to completing a construction certificate that led her to a career in framing. Sears said she would call him and her mother almost daily, excited about the homes she was working on. He said she was extremely safety conscious and quit a previous job when the new site supervisor was doing things she felt were unsafe.
“She shouldn’t have died this way,” he said. “She had all her safety training before this.”
Crown prosecutor James Pickard said in other cases companies have received fines closer to $300,000, but asked for a fine of $150,000 in this case because the company is small and is also being placed on corporate probation, a sentencing option that was legislated in 2003.
The corporate probation recommended by Occupational Health and Safety officials will see the company owners take construction safety training and create safety protocol that will be audited by a third party.
Judge Gordon Wong reduced the fine to $100,000, saying he doubted the struggling company would be able to come up with the money.
“It is a small company that operates to survive,” Wong said.
Court heard from McClintock’s wife that the company made $77,000 in 2013 and $80,000 in 2014.
Wong said a high fine would most likely result in the company becoming bankrupt and the fine never being paid.
“How do you get blood from a stone?” he said.
McClintock and his wife Stephanie Coupland said Sear’s death has profoundly affected them. He stopped running the business he founded in 2001 for a year and was a framing supervisor because he said he lacked confidence in his ability to do the job.
Now that they have tried to resume operating business the poor economy and the publicity they received over this death has diminished their contracts, forcing McClintock to look for work in other provinces. He said it is still difficult to work as a framer.
“That feeling of remembering is with me daily,” he said, choking up. “I struggle with my feelings and providing for my family.”
McClintock said the lifting the wall should have waited. Two workers who could have helped lifting the wall were late that day, but arrived shortly after Peggy was killed. They also discussed other ways to lift the wall, including using a Zoom Boom or crane, but the site had not been backfilled and the ground was soft and muddy from a recent snowfall so the machinery could not get close to the house, he said.
“This decision has haunted me,” McClintock said.
