Yard Maneuver – Fatal Accident

The death of a young worker caused deep public sorrow. Many wondered whether it could have been avoided and whether any blame could be attributed to those who had a duty to supervise the safety of his tasks.

It was raining heavily on the day the young man from Venice died—so intensely that driving was barely possible.

Yet the young worker, employed by a company that collects glass for recycling, had begun working outdoors under the driving rain, as he had been doing every day for a couple of months.

He was an analyst responsible for qualitative analyses of the collected glass, distinguishing recyclable material and assessing the quality of already processed glass.

Until some time earlier, he had been comfortably seated in the internal laboratory; then, for reasons unknown, the company decided to move these operations outdoors.

Needing to take glass samples for qualitative analysis, he set up his workstation with test tubes and reagents and immersed himself in the complex analyses.

In the same yard, all the quantities of glass collected by trucks during the day from separate waste collections were piled up, unloaded directly into the same area through which pedestrians—such as the analyst, his colleagues, and other employees—were passing.

In addition to the trucks unloading material, other vehicles circulated in the yard to transfer the glass inside, ready to be recycled and given a second life.

A fatal workplace accident that could have been avoided

During loading operations, an articulated truck was unable to pass through the yard because the passage was obstructed by a pile of glass from which the victim was taking samples for analysis. To allow the heavy vehicle to pass, a company worker driving a mechanical loader began moving the accumulated material.

During the maneuver, the operator accidentally struck the young victim, who died instantly due to the very serious injuries sustained.

When a worker dies, neither the employer nor the safety officer—where the two roles do not coincide—immediately grasp the potential legal consequences.

Nevertheless, despite the overwhelming grief, it is automatic that the police notified of the fatal accident file a report and begin investigations for manslaughter.

There are crimes of particularly serious nature—manslaughter among them—that do not require an initiative by the injured party or their relatives to trigger investigations; judicial authorities act autonomously, ex officio.

When investigations for manslaughter begin

Both situations—the victim’s family and the involved employer—require that the parties promptly consult a lawyer who will obtain copies of the reports and verify the progress of the investigations.

Criminal proceedings, unlike civil ones, do not provide for a succession of written acts throughout; they are largely conducted orally, especially during the central phase, the trial.

Nevertheless, during the preliminary investigation phase, defense counsel may always submit written requests to the Public Prosecutor (Article 367 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). The defense counsel for the suspect may use the defensive brief pursuant to Article 415-bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure to request further investigative steps or submit documents; and pursuant to Article 121 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, defense counsel is always allowed to file written submissions to the Judge, for example to request alternative procedures such as abbreviated proceedings when defending the accused, or to set out reasons opposing a request to close the case without identifying responsible parties when defending the injured party.

The written submissions provided for during investigations are traditionally free in form, indicating the essential data identifying the party on whose behalf they are filed and the relevant criminal report.

Once the investigations are completed and the procedural path has been chosen, the injured party—and, where applicable, the heirs—may file a written application to join the proceedings as a civil party, if they decide to sue the defendant for damages following a criminal conviction.

This application has a rather formalized content, as it must specify the damages suffered by the victim, including from a quantitative standpoint, unlike other criminal submissions which are traditionally free in form and merely indicate the essential identifying data and the relevant proceedings.

It was by following this path that the employer and the safety officer found themselves charged in the criminal proceedings resulting from the investigations conducted by the authorities into responsibility for the incident, alongside the victim’s family members who joined the proceedings as civil parties.

Employer and corporate safety: where criminal liability arises

After the ex officio report, at first instance the Court convicted both defendants of manslaughter committed in violation of workplace safety regulations.

The Court of Appeal reduced the defendants’ liability profiles and the sentences by partially modifying the circumstances of the offense. It acknowledged that the risk of having pedestrians and articulated vehicles circulating in the same yard had been envisaged.

The Court of Cassation in Rome ultimately rejected the findings of the second instance as contradictory and quashed the judgment with remand.

The Supreme Court judges proceeded from the premise that, since sampling activities took place in an area of the yard where vehicles of various kinds were simultaneously transiting, there was an interference between pedestrians and vehicles, in work areas that were neither signposted nor delimited, within transit zones with limited space and numerous piles of stored material.

Another element was that the company’s legal representative and employer had delegated the Prevention and Safety Officer to adopt measures, while retaining spending autonomy and therefore the duty to supervise the overall corporate safety policy.

Meanwhile, the Prevention and Safety Officer carried out activities in corporate safety by preparing projects.

He was subject to a legal duty to collaborate with the employer by identifying risks and providing appropriate technical indications to resolve them; however, the Court of Appeal did not analyze whether he had breached this duty by omitting the necessary reporting aimed at removing the risk connected to uncontrolled vehicle circulation in the yard.

Above all, it remained unclear whether the Officer’s role entailed an autonomous power of intervention or was limited to suggesting measures that then had to be implemented exclusively by the employer.

From the trial findings it emerged that, in this case, he had developed projects and proposals but, in the absence of a spending delegation, was not entrusted with the obligation to implement such initiatives.

The factor that led the Court of Cassation to quash the judgment and remit the case to the appellate court was the fact that witness testimony was consistent in stating that the Officer had reported the risk to the employer, thereby exhausting his functions.

He had not overlooked the dangerous situation that had developed in the yard, where for some time—due to changed corporate policies—qualitative analyses were carried out by taking samples directly from the material accumulated outdoors rather than in the internal laboratory.

Decision-making authority and spending power

Although the Head of the Prevention and Protection Service (RSPP) shares with the employer the task of identifying risk factors within the corporate organization and proposing suitable technical and organizational measures to reduce them, his role cannot be equated with that of the employer. The distinction between functions is decisive precisely in terms of criminal liability.

By statutory definition (Articles 2 and 33 of Legislative Decree No. 81/2008), the RSPP performs an essentially consultative and propositional function: he analyzes production processes, assesses risks, and formulates technical recommendations, but he does not hold autonomous decision-making power nor, as a rule, spending authority. In the absence of a formal and specific delegation accompanied by the necessary organizational and financial powers, the RSPP is not required to implement the identified safety measures, nor can he be held liable for their non-implementation.

It is precisely the lack of executive powers that delineates the scope of his liability, which stops at the stage of reporting the risk and formulating adequate technical proposals.

When such reports are actually made and brought to the employer’s attention, the RSPP’s legal obligation can be considered fulfilled.

It is instead for the employer to assess, decide, and finance the necessary interventions, retaining the duty to supervise the overall configuration of corporate safety.

The case law of the Court of Cassation consistently holds that the criminal liability of the RSPP may arise only in the presence of omissions qualifying as gross negligence, such as failure to identify an obvious risk, the drafting of manifestly inadequate or misleading assessments, or failure to report concretely perceivable dangerous situations.

Conversely, where it is proven that the Officer correctly identified the risk and formally reported it to the employer, the failure to adopt preventive measures that remained unimplemented due to corporate choices outside his sphere of competence cannot be attributed to him.

In this sense, the absence of spending autonomy is not merely an organizational detail, but a legally decisive element delimiting the perimeter of criminal liability, preventing undue extensions of blame to figures who, while central to safety management, lack the concrete tools to influence the company’s operational choices.

Interference risk

A different situation arises where work activities take place in a context characterized by the simultaneous presence of multiple companies operating in the same space, with interference among different activities. In such cases, workplace safety regulations assign a central role to the client and, where appointed, the third-party manager, as holders of an autonomous and reinforced position of guarantee.

In the presence of interference risks, the legislature imposes specific obligations of coordination, cooperation, and control (Article 26 of Legislative Decree No. 81/2008), which cannot be delegated or fully transferred to other technical figures. It is the client’s responsibility to verify the technical-professional suitability of the companies involved, promote the exchange of information on specific risks, and ensure that the various activities are carried out safely, avoiding dangerous overlaps between people, vehicles, and materials.

In this scenario, liability for injurious or fatal events cannot be attributed to the RSPP of a single company merely for having identified or reported a risk; instead, it tends to concentrate on the client, who governs the overall organization of the workplace, and on the third-party manager, where vested with managerial and decision-making powers in safety matters.

It is these figures who bear the obligation to adopt concrete preventive measures, plan work activities, and prevent operational interferences from turning into unmanaged dangerous situations. We have also addressed this in relation to workplace safety in the context of fire/explosion risk (boiler rooms), particularly with regard to the concept of non-delegability.

The case law of the Supreme Court has repeatedly clarified that, in the presence of multiple companies, the client’s position of guarantee is not exhausted by a merely formal control, but entails effective supervision over the organizational setup and safety conditions of the shared area.

Consequently, where the harmful event derives from deficient management of interference risks, criminal liability (and, in many cases, civil liability) is destined to fall on those who had the power—and the duty—to coordinate and govern the entire operational context, rather than on figures lacking decision-making autonomy and spending capacity.