California Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(Cal-OSHA)

What they should have done:

Cal-OSHA responsibility is to enforce the laws governing worker Safety and Health issues in the workplace. It is their job to investigate accidents that happen at the workplace and find the cause of the accident and work toward finding ways to prevent similar accidents in the future. They are to look at both the violation of civil as well as criminal laws. They have the power to levy fines, demand changes, investigate and publicly hold accountable those responsible when laws have been violated. They are the agency that was created to insure that worker safety is real, not just an illusion.

When Ken was killed while working they should have come in and done a thorough investigation of the accident and determined what was the cause or causes of this accident. To do a thorough investigation they should have examined and tested the vehicle he was directed to drive to determine what role if any it played in the accident. They should have talked to as many witnesses to the accident as possible. They should have done an in depth interview with the passenger in the vehicle to determine if he could shed some light on what actually happened. The passenger, more than anyone else on the scene, was in the best position to give the best information about what training they were given, why they were not wearing seatbelts or helmets, safety attitude on the set, etc.

After the accident Cal-OSHA should have talked to the BLM (Bureau of Land Management), the dune buggy owners, and asked in-depth questions of Universal/MCA Television personnel who were there and saw the accident. They are to notify the next of kin of their investigation. They should have taken adequate time to do a thorough and timely report and been willing to keep the parents of the victim updated with the true status of the investigation.

The Reality:

After several weeks of not hearing anything from anyone, we called Cal-OSHA and found the person, Ken Fry, who was in charge of the investigation. He assured us there was indeed an investigation going on. He also told us that Warren Etchells; criminal investigator for OSHA was looking into the case to see if any criminal acts had been committed. He suggested that we call Mr. Ecthells so he could bring us up to date on his investigation. When we called and spoke to Mr. Etchells, he told us that he had Ken's file right on his desk but had thought that Ken was a stunt man, so he was presently doing nothing. After learning from us that Ken was a Professional Actor, not a stuntman, he assured us that he would get right on this case. We contacted both investigators several times over the next couple of months and gave them any information we could think of and asked for up-dates on their investigation. We specifically asked them to do a thorough test of the dune buggy and get a detailed statement from Chris Maleki the other actor and passenger in the vehicle at the time of the accident. We had talked to Chris several times shortly after the accident and learned many disturbing facts concerning safety issues on this set and felt there were some serious safety violations OSHA needed to look into.

We were told in October, November and early December, over the phone when we talked to Mr. Fry, that they were still working on the case and not to worry. We finally received a copy of their report sometime in early January 1997, almost 5 months later and while going through and reading this report it became very clear that something was very wrong. By the dates on this OSHA accident report it appeared that Mr. Fry had done his whole investigation 3 days after the accident and nothing else after this time was done. This was shocking and unbelievable, but true. We never received a report of any kind from Mr. Etchells even though he was supposedly doing an entire different and independent investigation. Why would OSHA employees Ken Fry and Warren Etchells lie to us, and intentionally lead us on by telling us they were still doing their investigation? What possible reason, other than the fact that they wanted to mislead us into thinking they were really doing their job, could they have had for lying to us? No one, especially a profession government investigator should be allowed to do this to parents who have just lost a son and were trying to find out why it happened. But that is exactly what they did as OSHA representatives. Why promise a thorough investigation, why promise to interview the passenger, why promise anything if it was never their intention to do it?

Employees of Universal/MCA Television that were not even on site the day of the accident were quoted in the OSHA accident report. However, the only thing the report refers to concerning statements from the actor that was with our son at the time of the accident was that attempts to contact him were unsuccessful. They mention in the report that they did a visual inspection of the vehicle. When we asked them what was involved in the inspection they stated that they looked at the vehicle and pushed it. That was the extent of their in-depth investigation. This was a nightmare, but it got worse. We called Mr. Fry's Supervisor, Mr. David Sullivan, who, like the CHP Supervisor, backed up this report as thorough. When we would not back down and demanded answers we were called and told, by Mr. Fry's Supervisor that OSHA's legal counsel had determined this accident was out of OSHA's jurisdiction. We were told that they had determined Ken was an independent contractor and therefore there was no employee/employer relationship, this is despite the fact that Universal/MCA Television was allowed to claim Ken as their employee. Legal counsel for OSHA authorized Mr. Fry's report to be pulled, withdrew OSHA from any further investigation, and informed us there would be no penalties or citations issued to anyone! This got them off the hook for the shoddy investigation and prevented us from getting answers to questions about our son's death that we so desperately needed.

Our son's death did not matter and there was no interest on their part to look for the facts and find the truth. In the end the only truth was that there was no investigation.

OSHA investigator Ken Fry simply went to Universal/MCA Studios chatted with some people wrote up the information they wanted in the report, and left. Because Universal/MCA Television is a Corporation they received a superficial investigation and nothing else. The purpose for which they were there, the death of our son, a worker killed on the job, was simply not important. There was certainly no intent to find out the truth or prevent any future accidents from happening from the OSHA investigation that was written up after our son's death and even this report was pulled.

The reality is OSHA didn't do anything.

Return to The Investigation page.