Rooney Earthmoving Ltd has been acquitted on three charges relating to the death of a man in an irrigation trench on a North Otago farm two years ago.
KB Irrigation employee Rod O'Connor died on July 11, 2006, after being trapped when a trench collapsed.
Rooney Earthmoving denied two charges of failing to take all practicable steps to ensure no action or inaction of an employee while at work harmed another person in respect to the excavation of a trench, and a charge of failing to take all practicable steps to ensure that, where the face of an excavation is more than 1.5m high, that face is shored.
Judge Phil Moran reserved his decision following a defended hearing in the Oamaru District Court in March.
In a decision released this week, Judge Moran said there was no practicable step Rooney Earthmoving could have taken to ensure excavator driver Barry McGuire did what he should have - stopped work and reported to his employer.
Nor could the company be responsible for any failure to shore the sides of the trench.
It could not deal with a hazard that it neither knew, nor ought to have known, anything about.
Mr McGuire and Airedale-Roseberry Irrigation Company shareholders Gary Fox and Barrie Elliott were working under Mr O'Connor's direction.
At the point where the trench collapsed, it had been cut to a depth of 3m.
"This was dangerous and Rod O'Connor knew it," Judge Moran said.
Small quantities of soil had already begun falling into the trench, moving Mr O'Connor to ask Mr Elliott to "watch this thing doesn't fall and give us a yell if you see any dirt fall in", Judge Moran said.
Mr O'Connor chose to carry on.
"He was in charge of the operation. The decision was his to make. The decision cost him his life," he said.
He said Mr McGuire should have recognised the danger of excavating a trench more than 1.5m deep with vertical unsupported sides.
Although he was not in charge of the work site, he was in charge of the excavator, and he should have refused to lower pipes to men in the trench without first battering back the sides.
Mr McGuire knew about the hazards of trenching, how to obviate the hazard of potential collapse and he had the skill to do so.
He deliberately took the risk involved, a reckless act no doubt contributed to by his lack of authority on the work site, Judge Moran said.
Because he deliberately took a risk, it did not follow that his employer must have failed to train him properly.
