In November 2019 a manager, 32, of a restaurant, a national chain, was overcome by chlorine gas and died. The investigation established that a worker at the restaurant spilled a “cleaner” on the floor during the day. Then later that night, a different employee started to clean the floor with a “floor cleaner”. The mixture of the previously spilled “cleaner” and the “floor cleaner” reacted and created chlorine gas, causing employees and customers to evacuate. The restaurant manager attempted to clean up the liquids and was overcome by chlorine gas and he died later at the hospital. Today I learned that this is NOT the first time this has happened at this brand of Restaurant. In 2016 the same brand had another chemical mixture incident in FL and that worker also died. So I wonder, if both locations were privately owned by two different owners, could OSHA issue REPEAT or WILLFUL citations to the Massachusetts franchisee based on what happened in FL in 2016? What role does the Franchise have in communicating incidents and hazards to other franchisees?
The best I can tell, there is not even an OSHA case opened on this most recent fatality in MA.