While it remains a head-scratcher that Notre Dame would openly welcome negative PR by appealing a fine stemming from the death of a student, said appeal has proven successful and the private university’s coffers will take a little bit less of a hit.
So congrats on that, I guess.
It was announced Friday that the Indiana Occupational Health & Safety Administration has reduced the university’s fine to $42,000. The original fine was $77,500, a result of six safety violations slapped on the university by IOSHA following the death of Declan Sullivan, a videographer who was killed when a hydraulic lift from which he was filming a football practice toppled over in 53-mph winds.
In addition to the reduction in monetary responsibility -- and the reduction from a “knowing” violation to a “serious” violation -- Notre Dame will also be required to make a substantial contribution to a memorial for Sullivan as well as, the Associated Press writes, launch a nationwide education program directed at other schools about the hazards of the outdoor use of scissor lifts.
Following a four-month investigation into Sullivan’s Oct. 2010 death, IOSHA released its findings this past March, writing that “Notre Dame did not establish and maintain conditions of work that were reasonably safe for its employees that were free from recognized hazards that caused or were likely to cause death or serious injury.”
And, for that, they were rewarded with a roughly 40-percent reduction in their fine. Yeah, that makes complete and total sense.