The Clark County Prosecutor has declined to file criminal charges against a Vancouver-based company that had been cited and fined by the state for violating youth labor laws after a teenage employee lost both legs on a jobsite in 2023.
In March, the state’s Department of Labor and Industries asked the Clark County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office to investigate and prosecute Rotschy, Inc. It was the first time the workplace-safety enforcement agency had pursued felony charges over a youth labor violation.
Prosecuting Attorney Anthony F. Golik wrote in an Oct. 8 letter to L&I that based on the evidence available, the legal barriers to prosecution were “insurmountable.”
“The factual record confirms that the minor was exposed to prohibited equipment, but it does not establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the corporate entity acted with a culpable mental state,” Golik wrote. “This was a preventable accident, but the legal standard for felony prosecution requires more than a violation, it requires culpability. That standard has not been met.”
The 16-year-old worker, participating in a school work program, had been digging a trench using a type of machine the law prohibits minors from operating. When he stopped to check his progress, the ground gave way, dragging his legs underneath the still-running machine. Medics airlifted him to a Portland hospital where he underwent emergency surgery.
A 2024 Cascade PBS investigation found the company had violated numerous safety and labor laws. State legislators cited the teen’s injuries and Cascade PBS’s reporting when they passed significant reforms to youth labor protections, safety violation penalties and minor work permit oversight earlier this year.
The Clark County Sheriff’s Office also declined to open a criminal investigation into the teen’s injury earlier this year, citing a lack of victim and witness cooperation.
The company’s safety history has come under renewed scrutiny after the Port of Longview awarded Rotschy a $44 million Industrial Rail Corridor Expansion project in January that adds two new rail tracks along the Columbia River.
As work began at the Port, another Rotschy worker was medically airlifted from a different site with severe injuries after an unsecured excavator bucket fell onto the lower half of the 35-year-old man’s body.
On Sept.8, an excavator became partially submerged in a pond after a slope collapsed at the Rotschy construction site at the Port.
The operator, according to safety audits, was immediately able to extricate himself from the cab after it went into the water without injury. Port documents indicate a Rotschy employee was using a 25-ton excavator to shovel fill into a pond when the machine dropped 10-12 feet. Crews halted all work and Port officials opened an investigation.
A picture of the scene shows a yellow excavator arm leaning against a rocky slope. The cab, engine and tracks are all below the water line.
“The slope did fail quicker than we thought, and mostly due to there’s a channel running there,” Kyle Fadness, a Port employee, told commissioners at a Sept. 24 meeting.
Local labor unions have protested the Port’s decision to hire Rotschy due to its safety record, which includes 25 serious violations and $264,000 in fines over the past five years.
