Ohio's Supreme Court says that nitrogen is not poisonous after having killed a man in Timkensteel | Cleveland

The Republican majority at the Ohio Supreme Court decided last week that nitrogen gas was not qualified as poisonous in 2016 when a worker killed in Timkensteel – a company founded by an important Republican family.

The family sold the company's majority in 2014, but still seemed to be invested and played a leadership role when the accident took place. The family members continued to perform great contributors from Republicans – including three of the judges who decided against the widow of the killed worker.

In this case, it was whether nitrogen could be considered toxic in every concentration. At the game there was tens of thousands of dollars a year in which the company could have been on the hook for decades.

Ohio's Attorney General, Dave Yost, is currently committed to using nitrogen gas in the State Chamber of Commerce.

In March 2016, the 32 -year -old Kenny Ray Jr. Feuerhöscher inspected the Faircrest plant by Timkensteel. When he went into a pressure control room under pressure, there was no room filled with nitrogen, which also worked as a firefighter and police officer.

His widow Sharmel Culver received death advantages that are two thirds of the average weekly salary of the deceased employee, but limited around $ 800 a week. Culver wanted more and argued that her husband was killed by security violations in the factory.

Days after Ray's death, the canton repository reported that Timkensteel had had violations of security violations in the past. At the time of the accident, the company was exposed to 500,000 US dollars, and the US administration for security and healthcare had brought the company to serious violations, the newspaper reported.

Culver, Ray's widow, wanted Timkensteel to pay her a “violation of a certain security requirement”. The company could have forced this to pay half as much as it came into the death advantage.

And Timkensteel might have had to pay for a long time. Spouses are entitled to benefit as long as they live or to think. Dependent children are justified until they live to be 21 – 25 when they are full -time at school.

Culver said that she was entitled to the additional services because Timkensteel had violated the rules according to which the company minimized the commitment of an employee towards air contaminants and had to provide breathing apparatus for shooters before them.

The Industrial Commission in Ohio denied the claim and said that nitrogen must be poisonous in some amount to be a contamination.

Nitrogen is a common element that makes up about 3% of the human body. It also makes up about 78% of the air that we usually breathe.

But nitrogen scattered oxygen, and when the oxygen concentrations drop below 16%, the brain orders the lungs to breathe faster and deeper. If you fall to around 5%, coma and death quickly occur, according to the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.

Highly concentrated nitrogen is such an effective murderer that Alabama uses him in his death chamber.

As Culver, Ray's widow, introduced to the rejection of her claim of the 10th Court of Appeal of the Industrial Commission, this court agreed with it. When instructing the industrial commission to rethink her rejection, she said last year that whether a substance can be considered to be poisonous must take into account how concentrated it is and how this concentration affects human health.

“In order for this definition to make sense, it must be understood that a substance becomes poisonous on a abnormal level in the atmosphere,” the judges wrote. “This is not a static amount, but a threshold relative to the unique properties of every substance.”

However, Ohio's Supreme Court rejected this reasoning last week.

“The position of Culver is essentially that Ray died of a dangerous concentration of nitrogen gas in the atmosphere. Ergo is an” air contaminant “, wrote the six Republican judges.” But the definition of “air -contaminants” at the time of Ray's death only included “toxic” gases … ”

The lonely democratic justice, Jennifer Brunner, wrote a dissent in which they accused their colleagues to play Word games to refuse the family families because of the comparison of workers.

Such games are “a bad excuse for refusing workers of justice whose injuries lead to death,” wrote Brunner. “We can and should recognize that the term” dangerous concentration “and the simple importance of” toxic gases “are relieved for fatally injured workers such as Ray. These regulatory terms are not used to carry out Gotcha -JurisPrevudence based on construction rules for redundancy.”

The presence of the Timken name in this case also raises questions, but they are difficult to answer. The family founded a company that moved to Canton in 1901, produced roller warehouse and then moved to steel, electricity transmission and other areas.

It is also closely associated with Republican politics in Ohio. Jane Timken – Wife of the former chairman, CEO and CEO, became Timken Jr., was chairman of the Ohio Republican Party from 2017 to 2021. Last year she was elected to the Senate in Ohio after his leadership.

The Timken family has also generously donated to Republican causes and candidates – also for Ohio's Supreme Court. Records in the State Secretary of Ohio state that Timken Jr. only contributed 80,000 US dollars for national and state republican groups in the five weeks before the 2020 elections.

The Timken Good Government Fund in 2022 gave 2,000 US dollars for the Committees of Republican judges Pat Dewine and Pat Fischer. In the same year Jane Timken gave the Justice's $ 2,500 and last year led 2,000 US dollars to a committee for another Republican judiciary, Megan E. Shanahan, as evidenced by state records.

A spokesman for the Supreme Court was asked if the judges believed that they had a conflict of interest.

“The recruits are subject to the practice of the Supreme Court of Justice 4.04,” said spokesman Andy Elschern in an e -mail. “In this case, in this case, no party has submitted to this rule in which justice was asked to withdraw. In addition, every judiciary can withdraw if they have a conflict.”

It is also difficult to learn, the extent of the family's commitment in Timkensteel when Ray was killed in his work in Faircrest in March 2016.

A spokesman for the Timken company found that Timkensteel was switched off in 2014 and now has a new name, Metallus. He referred questions to this company.

“In the name of Metallus (formerly Timkensteel), I would like to make it clear that the Timken family has had no management role, board seats or other connections to the company since 2019,” said Jennifer Beeman, communication director Jennifer Beeman in an e -mail. “In addition, they are not considered the main shareholders. We will not make any additional comments.”

In a follow-up question, what the Timken family was involved in 2016 was killed, Beeman did not answer.

Originally published by Ohio Capital Journal. Published here again with permission.