Electric Service Accident

In California, the Public Utilities Commission adopted a settlement agreement under which an electric utility, Southern California Edison Company (SCE), must pay a civil penalty of $2.01 million for a September 30, 2013, incident at its Huntington Beach underground vault. The incident resulted in the death of an employee of an SCE subcontractor, who had inadvertently removed an energized dead-break elbow while he was preparing the underground cables for testing.

An investigation conducted by the commission's Safety and Enforcement Division (SED) revealed that SCE had improperly delegated its safety responsibilities to its contractor, in contravention of both California law and commission rules and decisions. In addition, SED found that the utility had failed to ensure that its contractor and subcontractor performed their work safely.

According to SED, its inquiry had been complicated by the fact that SCE had refused to hand over the report and findings from the utility's own investigation. However, SED acknowledged that following the accident, the utility had promptly launched an investigation and then voluntarily took steps to make important improvements in its contractor safety programs and incident investigation practices and procedures. The commission agreed with SED's assessment that such action militated in favor of a lower fine than what otherwise might have been appropriate. (Decision 17-06- 028, Investigation 15-11-006)