Published: Saturday, November 17, 2012 at 10:58 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, November 17, 2012 at 10:58 a.m.
A nearly 200-year-old Massachusetts statute outlining the penalties for
corporate manslaughter is being thrust into the spotlight again as lawmakers on
Beacon Hill and in Congress wrestle with the fallout from a deadly meningitis
outbreak linked to a local compounding pharmacy.
While
the investigation into the Framingham-based New England Compounding Center is
still ongoing and no charges have been brought, Massachusetts Attorney General
Martha Coakley says the case helps illustrate the need to change the
manslaughter law, which hasn't been updated since it was first signed into law
by former Gov. John Brooks on February 19, 1819.
That law
set a top penalty of $1,000.
"We
understand that there is no amount of money that can compensate for the loss of
an individual's life. However, $1,000 is a woefully inadequate penalty and not a
meaningful deterrent," Coakley wrote this week in a letter to the Legislature's
Committee on Public Health, which is looking into the meningitis outbreak.
Coakley
wants the maximum fine for corporate manslaughter increased to $250,000, and has
pushed legislation at the Statehouse that would make the change.
That
legislation was originally filed in the wake of a ceiling panel collapse in the
Big Dig in July 2006. The collapse killed Milena Del Valle, 39, of Boston, and
injured her husband when their car was crushed as it traveled through the
project's Interstate 90 connector tunnel.
Powers
Fasteners, a New York company that marketed and distributed the epoxy anchor
bolt system used in the tunnel, was indicted for manslaughter in August 2007 in
connection with Del Valle's death but faced the maximum fine of just $1,000.
continue reading here