Business owners beware: If you're not 100 per cent compliant with Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act, you're totally screwed if something bad happens to one of your employees.

A company called Pipe & Piling SuppliesLimited, based in Toronto, learned this the hard way (though not nearly as hard as the person who was injured working for them) on Nov. 4 when an Ontario Court Justice determined that they should be fined $50,000 in relation to an incident that took place last April.

The provincial government released a court bulletin on Friday, as they sometimes do for high-profile cases of workplace death or injury, announcing that the steel pipe producer and supplier had been fined $50K by Justice of the Peace Vladimir Bubrin earlier this month.

The company was also ordered to pay a 25 per cent fine surcharge, per the Provincial Offences Act, which will go into a "special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime."

According to the province, a worker employed by Pipe & Piling at 36 Towns Road in Toronto had "sustained critical injuries when they became pinned between a rail car and a front-end loader" in April of 2021.

"On April 8, 2021, a worker was using the forks of a front-end loader to move an empty rail car along railway tracks," reads the court bulletin issued by Ontario's Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development on Nov. 25.

"Once at the desired location, the worker jumped onto the rail car to access the hand brakes, but the rail car rolled backwards. The worker became pinned between the rail car and the front-end loader, sustaining critical injuries."

Crown prosecutors had argued in the Ontario Court of Justice at Toronto's Old City Hall that Pipe & Piling had failed as an employer to "ensure that the unattended flatbed railcar was immobilized and secured against accidental movement."

Pipe & Piling Supplies Limited, to its credit, pled guilty to the charge — which is more than can be said for some companies dealing with serious workplace safety charges.