Family sues Stellantis over Toledo Jeep plant death: 'The worst news ever'

Miami Herald

3 days ago

The wife of the 53-year-old man who was fatally crushed at Toledo, Ohio's Jeep plant a year ago sued Stellantis NV on Monday, alleging the automaker didn't have adequate safety guards in place that could have prevented his death.
Toledo resident Antonio Gaston, the father of three adult children and a teenager, died Aug. 21 while working in the Jeep Gladiator portion of the Toledo Assembly Complex.
It was the first of two workplace fatalities reported inside U.S. Stellantis plants over the last year, with the other occurring in April at the Dundee Engine Plant in Monroe County, Michigan.
The lawsuit filed by Renita Shores-Gaston in Ohio's Lucas County Court of Common Pleas says Stellantis didn't have sufficient guarding around the plant's conveyor system, which ultimately caught Gaston before he was pinned and crushed by a vehicle chassis.
The complaint, which mentions the automaker and 10 other unnamed people, says critical safety features were either removed or were designed without crucial features to prevent workers from being snagged.
"I never thought that him going to work at a factory would cause him to lose his life," Shores-Gaston told The Detroit News on Monday.
Antonio Gaston, whose job was to deliver parts to the assembly line, had transferred in late 2021 to the Jeep plant, which builds Gladiators and Wranglers, after his home Stellantis factory in Illinois, the Belvidere Assembly Plant, underwent layoffs and eventually closed.
Shores-Gaston said she remained based in Rockford, Illinois, after her husband was forced to follow his job to Toledo, but they often visited each other for days at a time.
The Lucas County Coroner found Antonio Gaston's cause of death was crushing injuries to his torso and determined it was not instantaneous. A report from the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration said he had reached across the conveyor line to retrieve materials when the line activated, catching him.
The agency issued Stellantis a "serious" violation after an inspection, flagging a lack of machine guarding that could create hazards, and fined the automaker about $16,000. The automaker is contesting the fine.
"We extend our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Antonio Gaston," Stellantis said in a statement from spokeswoman Jodi Tinson. "There is nothing we take more seriously than the safety of our employees. We don't comment on ongoing litigation."
Shores-Gaston's attorney, L. Chris Stewart, said Monday that his firm is still seeking details on exactly what happened - including whether Antonio Gaston may have been in fact working on the vehicle itself when the incident occurred, and why the safety guarding wasn't in place at the time. He said attorneys also were exploring whether understaffing at the plant could have been a factor.
The lawsuit states that Stellantis and other individuals should have known that "operating the Conveyor System in the manner they did constituted a dangerous process, procedure, and/or instrumentality" at the plant. Court documents also point to potential issues with the original designer and producer of the conveyor system used inside the facility. The suit seeks at least $25,000 and other damages.
Shores-Gaston said her husband was a jokester who liked to fish and work out at the YMCA with his children: "A great dad, very involved with the kids' lives."
She had been in Toledo the day of her husband's death. Incomplete information that something bad had happened at the plant slowly trickled in to her phone, first from her sister, then from United Auto Workers officials.
A sense of horror grew, Shores-Gaston said, as she frantically called her husband that afternoon. But there was no response. A good friend was the first to say it looked like he was dead; then union and automaker officials confirmed it.
"I was lost, and I had to call my kids, and tell them," she recalled. "It was the worst news ever to tell them, that he was gone."
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