Do you think that an individual can be held responsible for this accident? Why or why not?Can the corporation be held liable?What do you think appropriate sanctions are in this or similar cases?
I'm going to assume that you're talking about the buried in grain incidents. If you're not, ignore this answer. I think that both the corporation AND individuals can be held responsible. The corporations should have safety policies in place, and they should build the silos to be safer to work in. The individual overseers have the responsibility to follow safety guidelines, like not having workers in the silos when the machinery is running, and having proper safety equipment on hand and ready to use. The supervisors AND the companies need to be sure to hire workers that are of age to work at that job, and to train the workers well. The ultimate responsibility lies with the company, though, unless a supervisor is ignoring the company's rules and safeguards. As for sanctions, for the first incident, the company should have to pay for wrongful death. Second incident, wrongful death plus loss of any government contracts, or they have to shut down for 2 weeks if they don't have government contracts. Third incident, all of the above plus firing and replacing the supervisor and his/her manager, and the manager of that manager, because obviously the management isn't taking safety seriously.
