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Duvan Robert Tomas Pérez (Perez photo from his obituary; Mar-Jac sign from NBC News/YouTube)
A 16-year-old boy illegally employed at a beleaguered chicken processing plant in Mississippi was killed when he got caught in a rotating shaft and sprockets and pulled into the machine while cleaning in the facility’s deboning area in a case that prompted a federal child labor investigation, a lawsuit by his family alleges.
Duvan Robert Tomas Pérez was killed on July 14 at Mar-Jac Poultry in Hattiesburg, according to the lawsuit, which names as defendants Mar-Jac Poultry, contractor Ōnin Staffing, the human resources director, and an on-duty safety supervisor. It seeks compensation for medical expenses, future earnings, emotional and mental distress, and attorney fees.
“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,” said family attorney Jim Reeves, local NBC and ABC affiliate WDAM-TV reported. “Mar-Jac’s overall safety record is abysmal. These working conditions have to change. Pérez was hard-working and loved his family. One of the things he was most proud of was paying for his first car himself. It is a tragedy that this young life was taken when his death was easily preventable.”
Representatives from Mar-Jac and Ōnin did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Law&Crime. Ōnin filed a notice of controversion with the Mississippi Workers Compensation Commission on July 31, denying it was Perez’s employer, court documents said.
Mar-Jac claims it relied on Ōnin Staffing to ensure workers such as Pérez were of proper age and qualifications.
“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 said in a statement on July 20, WDAM-TV reported. “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.”
“We are devastated at the loss of life, and deeply regret that an underage individual was hired without our knowledge,” the statement added.
Pérez was sanitizing a still-energized machine when he suffered fatal injuries, according to the lawsuit. The plant’s procedure to start, stop, and lockout the equipment while it was being cleaned circumvented proper safety procedures and industry standards, court documents said.
An investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found that “despite a manager’s supervision in and around the area prior to and during the fatal incident — lockout/tagout procedures were not utilized to disconnect power to the machine and a lockout/tagout device was not used to prevent the machine from unintentionally starting during the cleaning.”
“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,” OSHA Regional Administrator Kurt Petermeyer said in a news release. “The company’s inaction has directly led to this terrible tragedy, which has left so many to mourn this child’s preventable death.”
OSHA cited Mar-Jac with 14 serious and three “other-than-serious” violations and proposed $212,646 in penalties.
“Mar-Jac and its affiliates have a long and sordid history of willful disregard for worker safety,” court documents said.
OSHA proposed hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties against Mar-Jac and its affiliates dating back to 2000 for health and safety violations — including four “willful violations,” court documents said. One safety hazard cited was “virtually identical to those in the instant case and included a lack of proper machine guarding and failure to perform lockout or tagout procedures.”
The teen’s death was the third worker fatality at that Mar-Jac plant in less than three years. The plant had violations for two deaths in 2020 and 2021, three amputations, and a hospitalized injury due to a fall.
On May 31, 2021, Bobby Butler, 48, was pulled onto a tray and pressed against a support beam while trying to clear a jam in an eviscerating machine. OSHA found serious safety violations for lack of machine guarding, failure to warn employees of the unguarded hazard, and allowing workers to place their hands in an exposed hazard position near the machinery, and fined Mar-Jac over $27,000, the lawsuit said.
“Following the fatal incident in May 2021, Mar-Jac should have enforced strict safety standards in its facility,” Petermeyer said. “Only about two years later, nothing has changed, and the company continues to treat employee safety as an afterthought, putting its workers at risk. No worker should be placed in a preventable dangerous situation, let alone a child.”
Pérez’s obituary said he was set to enter the ninth grade and enjoyed going to the gym and listening to music. One of his greatest accomplishments was buying his car, the obit said.
“He enjoyed being outside with his siblings, enjoyed working on his car and driving around,” it read. “Loved spending time with his mother, Edilma Perez.”
