Contractor in Massachusetts Trench Fatality in Legal Battle with Town
By: Lance Reynolds
Source: Boston Herald (TNS)
The Massachusetts construction company behind the site of a fatal trench collapse on Cape Cod has been in a legal battle with Yarmouth since the summer, suing the town just months before the deadly incident, court records show.
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Revoli Construction, a Franklin-based general contractor, filed a complaint in Norfolk Superior Court against the town of Yarmouth in early September, arguing that officials in the seaside community have engaged in “intentional” contract breaches, “work shutdowns,” and “discriminatory conduct.”
Town officials deny Revoli’s allegations, countering that the company’s conduct around the project site has caused “multiple hazards, injuries, and property damage due to poor work and planning,” according to a response and counterclaim filed last month.
The town awarded the company a $17.9 million contract for a phase of the $207 million sewer project in the spring of 2023, according to town records.
Town Manager Robert Whritenour says that he wishes Revoli hadn’t been approved for the work, claiming that the company was selected because it submitted the lowest bid, the Cape Cod Times reported on Friday.
“The key is they are an independent contractor,” Whritenour said. “They are solely responsible for safety issues.”
Questions are swirling in the mid-Cape town after a trench collapsed at the worksite in the area of 152 South Shore Drive in South Yarmouth, the address of The Skipper Restaurant and Chowder House, last Tuesday, killing one Revoli worker and injuring two others.
Authorities have identified the deceased victim as Miguel Reis, 61, of Fall River.
The Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety & Health is demanding accountability from Revoli, a company thy say has found itself mired in safety violations and legal trouble over the decades.
“This is not an isolated accident,” MassCOSH Executive Director Tatiana Begault said in a statement. “This is a pattern of indifference—a disgrace to the labor community and an insult to every worker who leaves home expecting to return safely.”
The advocacy group is calling for restitution to the families of fallen workers equal to the “wages the worker would have earned over their lifetime,” and to the state, “proportional to the harm and public resources expended after preventable tragedies.”
State Police detectives with the Cape & Islands District Attorney’s Office are investigating last week’s fatal incident with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Last week’s trench collapse near Parker River Beach is not OSHA’s first time investigating a safety incident on the project related to Revoli’s conduct.
The site of the trench collapse is just two-tenths of a mile away from 174 South Shore Drive, the address of a previous Revoli incident, on Dec. 18, 2024, according to an OSHA inspection detail record.
OSHA found that workers were “exposed to arc flash, electrical burns, electric shock and electrocution when electrical extension cords with indoor-rated connectors were left lying on wet ground.”
The feds issued an initial penalty of $11,585 to Revoli, with the general contractor paying a $6,950 fine as part of a “formal settlement,” reached this past August, according to records.
“The employer did not initiate and maintain a safety program which provides for frequent and regular inspections of jobsites, materials, and equipment to be made by a competent person,” the OSHA report states.
MassCOSH is demanding that there be statewide bans on contracting with companies that “repeatedly break the law and put workers’ lives at risk.”
“This tragedy is not just a regulatory failure—it is a moral failure,” Begault stated. “When a company’s history shows a clear, ongoing disregard for worker safety, allowing them to continue operating without consequences is a betrayal of every worker in the Commonwealth.”
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