The family of a 16-year-old boy who was illegally employed by a Mississippi chicken processing plant is suing the company after their son died while cleaning the facility’s deboning area, according to a report.
Teen worker Duvan Robert Tomas Pérez died last summer after getting caught in a rotating shaft and sprockets which pulled him into the machine at a Mar-Jac Poultry in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Since his death, Pérez’s family has now filed a lawsuit against Mar-Jac Poultry, contractor Ōnin Staffing, the facility’s human resources director, and an on-duty safety supervisor, Law&Crime reported.
The teen’s family is seeking compensation for medical expenses, future earnings, emotional and mental distress, and attorney fees from the defendants. (RELATED: Judge Hits Employer With $1,143 Fine After Teen Worker Loses Hand)
Perez’s family attorney Jim Reeves of Biloxi called out the “outrageous” case, slamming the company over its “abysmal” safety record, according to WLOX.
“What makes this case so outrageous is that another worker had been killed in an eerily similar fashion barely two years before, yet Mar-Jac did nothing to improve workers’ safety,” Reeves stated. “Mar-Jac’s overall safety record is abysmal.”
Not only is our food system putting the health of consumers at risk, but it is risking the lives of its workers.
This July, Duvan Robert Tomas Perez died while working at a poultry plant in Mississippi.
He was 16 years old.https://t.co/sCYpWqHH0I
— Government Accountability Project (@GovAcctProj) October 17, 2023
While the lawsuit additionally named 60 other unknown individuals, related to either Ōnin or Mar-Jac, onto the defendant list, the family claimed that the accused allegedly violated safety rules leading to Perez’s death, WLOX reported. The lawsuit continued to claim that equipment and parts Perez had been working near were “defective and unreasonably dangerous,” the outlet reported. (RELATED: Poultry Farm Allegedly Kept Underage Deboners In The Closet: REPORT)
In January, the Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA) released a report regarding Perez’s death, listing 17 violations against Mar-Jac Poultry and proposing over $200,000 in fines. With 14 serious violations and three “other-than-serious,” the investigation from OSHA found that there were a handful of issues with both the equipment and Perez’s training.
“Mar-Jac Poultry is aware of how dangerous the machinery they use can be when safety standards are not in place to prevent serious injury and death. The company’s inaction has directly led to this terrible tragedy, which has left so many to mourn this child’s preventable death,” OSHA Regional Administrator Kurt Petermeyer stated in a press release.
Perez’s death marks the third worker tragedy at the Mississippi facility in less than three years, Law&Crime reported. In both 2020 and 2021 the plant was cited for violations over two deaths, three amputations, and a hospitalization due to an employee fall, the outlet reported.
Mar-Jac Poultry has since claimed to be unaware of Perez’s age, stating it relied on Ōnin Staffing for hiring based on proper age and qualification requirements, the outlet reported. Ōnin Staffing on the other hand has since denied Perez was ever an employee, according to Law&Crime.
“Although the investigation is ongoing, it appears now that this worker was less than 18 years of age and should not have been hired,” Mar-Jac stated. “Mar-Jac MS would never knowingly put any employee, and certainly a minor, in harm’s way, but it appears, at this point in the investigation, that this individual’s age and identity were misrepresented on the paperwork.”