Lowell Excessive challenge bidder omitted particulars about employee dying – Lowell Solar

LOWELL – New details have emerged showing that an HVAC project by Lowell High School and the plumbing subcontractor contained no information on the death in 2019 of an employee originally from Greater Lowell.

In a Friday email to city manager Eileen Donoghue shared with The Sun, Karen Courtney, executive director of the Massachusetts Foundation for Fair Contracting, provided records showing that Harold Brothers Mechanical Inc. took over the city The circumstances of an employee’s death in March 2019 misled Russell MacPherson.

Also, according to Courtney, who submitted public records she received from the State Department of Industrial Accidents (DIA), Harold Bros. did not disclose that his insurance carrier no longer denies liability for MacPherson’s death and that employee compensation and other benefits were ultimately paid granted to his widow.

“The city shouldn’t be a synonym for this type of behavior,” Courtney wrote. “It’s not just about the integrity of the city, it’s also about the health and safety of workers [who] will help build the high school. “

According to his 2019 obituary published in The Sun and Cape Cod Times, 71-year-old MacPherson was born in Lowell and lived in Tewksbury before moving to Dennis, where he lived at the time of his death. A plumber by profession, he has run companies such as MacPherson Plumbing and Heating and Standard Plumbing and Heating over the years, and has served as an alternative plumbing and gas inspector for the city of Tewksbury.

Courtney wrote in response to an initial memo Donoghue submitted to city council last week ahead of a full motion response that will be presented to city council on Tuesday. The city councilor Rita Mercier asked Donoghue at the last meeting of the city council to “pay close attention to the information about a bidder”.

In a December 31 letter enclosed with Donoghue’s response, Harold Bros. President Patrick Harold said the company initially did not disclose the death due to the employee’s pre-existing condition and that he was more likely to be under warranty work to repair one Perform leaks as an ongoing construction project. The company decided to change its answer and provide supplemental information “with great caution,” wrote Harold.

That information states that while repairing a boiler leak in Centerville, Barnstable, on March 7, 2019, MacPherson suffered a heart attack caused by his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It found that the workers’ compensation insurer “rejected the claim based on the cardiac event that it considered unrelated to the work environment”.

“Even so, Mr. MacPherson suffered and died of the heart event while at work,” it said. “This was the subject of an OSHA quote that was ultimately resolved without Harold Brothers admitting liability.”

Courtney referred to a joint DIA memorandum prior to the hearing that said, “The insurer / self-insurer has assumed liability for the accident at work.”

“Harold Brothers filing their insurance company’s initial rejection, without revealing that the insurance company has now assumed liability, should cause the city to exclude that contractor from the project,” wrote Courtney, noting that the company was acting in bad faith.

In a partially edited letter dated August 23, 2019, Dr. Scott Slater of Cape Cod Healthcare Pulmonary Medicine concluded that MacPherson’s injuries as of March 7 this year “were causally related to his exposure at work.” Slater also wrote that the work incident was “a major, but not necessarily predominant, cause of death” four days later.

The matter was heard before DIA administrative judge Michael Williams on August 27, 2019. On September 3, 2019, Williams asked the insurer to pay the applicant benefits under four different provisions of state law, including death, funeral, medical, and attorney’s fees.

Courtney said MacPherson “did not die from tightening a bolt,” refuting Donoghue’s wording in the memo.

“He died after being sprayed with pressurized scald water and inhaled propylene glycol aerosols,” Courtney wrote, citing an OSHA report. “While it appears that his existing health also contributed to his death, we are extremely concerned that the more immediate causes of pressurized scald water and hazardous chemicals have never been revealed.”

She also expressed concern that the company “continues to have the audacity to claim” that, given these public records, it did not believe that MacPherson’s death was caused by his workplace injury. Courtney urged the city to turn down Harold Bros. Bidding and doing business with responsible contractors.

The Foundation for Fair Contracting in Massachusetts is an organization that promotes fair competition in the public construction industry and monitors compliance with public tenders and applicable wage laws.

“My concerns were that the mandatory laws must be followed and people need to know that there is fair competition to apply for a project and that people are honest about their records,” Courtney said Monday. “In this case, we have reason to believe that there have been some serious omissions and that doesn’t seem fair to the other contractors.”

She said Harold Bros. first got on her radar when the company was the lowest bidder for the Arlington High School project last year. Arlington in November and Sharon in January both ultimately turned down the company’s offers to do HVAC work on their high school projects, citing omissions on OSHA quotes, according to letters from The Sun.

Donoghue, Mercier, and Harold did not immediately return requests for comment.