For the first time in 27 years in Michigan, a construction worker has been given jail time for being responsible for a fellow worker's death on a job site.

Michigan Attorney General Jennifer Granholm and Monroe County Prosecutor Mike Welpert announced that James Morrin, Jr. 45, was recently sentenced to one year in jail and three years probation for the death of Robert Sorge, a 24-year-old truck driver. Morrin's employer, J.A. Morrin Concrete Co. of Toledo, was ordered to pay more than $200,000 in court costs, restitution and investigative costs to MIOSHA.

State investigators found that Sorge was electrocuted to death at a strip mall job site in Dundee when he raised the bed of his gravel truck into a 7,600-volt electrical line located directly over the work site. Morrin Construction and James Morrin had been notified on two separate occasions, two days before Sorge's death and again on the day of his death, that the electrical lines were too low and that no workers should be allowed to work under them.

According to the complaint, on Aug. 9, 2000, a Detroit Edison employee advised Morrin that he was to cease work under the power lines and request a service call from the utility to have them moved. On the same day, the Village of Dundee Building Inspector notified both Morrin and the company's owner that no workers were to be allowed under the power lines and that the low-hanging lines should be moved or taken down.

According to the Attorney General's office, on Aug. 11, Detroit Edison officials again warned Morrin not to work under the power lines. Sorge was killed later that same day when Morrin directly instructed him to raise the bed of his gravel truck under the power lines.

The company and Morrin, who was the company's foreman, were charged with one count each of involuntary manslaughter and criminal violation of a MIOSHA safety regulation causing employee death. Charges were filed in the 38th Circuit Court in Monroe.

"Given the potentially dangerous nature of their business, construction companies and their managers have an absolute responsibility to ensure that work sites are safe and secure," Granholm said. "Unfortunately, when construction companies do not abide by the law, it is the hard working men and women who suffer the consequences."

Following an investigation, J.A. Morrin Concrete Construction Company was cited by MIOSHA for willful and serious violations of MIOSHA including failing to inspect a work site to ensure that unsafe conditions were eliminated, failing to ensure that power lines in the construction area were de-energized or removed, allowing employees to work closer to power lines than allowed by law, and directing truck drivers to unload gravel directly underneath an energized power line.

As part of its sentence, J.A. Morrin Co. was also placed on five years probation and is required to perform community service work for organizations like Habitat for Humanity.

"When you are told four or five times there is a dangerous condition that exists, companies need to take note of that and protect workers at the jobsite," Monroe County Prosecutor Mark Weipert told the Construction Labor Report. "It could have been avoided, and it should have been avoided."