Mississippi Today
‘This should not have happened,’ lawyer says of 16-year-old’s death at poultry plant
Duvan Perez spent time with his mother and siblings and liked to listen to music and work out at the gym.
At night, he arrived at Mar-Jac Poultry in Hattiesburg to clean machinery used to process chicken for sale in restaurants. He was earning money to buy his own car.
“He was living the life that you’d expect of a 16-year-old,” said Seth Hunter, a Hattiesburg attorney.
Until he wasn’t and became the third person to die at the poultry plant in less than three years.
On the night of July 14, 2023, the Hattiesburg middle-schooler was cleaning a deboning machine when he got caught in a rotating shaft and sprockets and pulled in, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found in an investigation of the incident.
Federal child labor laws prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from working in meat processing plants because the machinery can be dangerous.
In court records and a statement released after Duvan’s death, Mar-Jac pointed the finger at its contractor, Onin Staffing, saying it relied on the company headquartered in Birmingham to verify employees’ age, qualifications and training, a wrongful lawsuit filed by the teenager’s mother, Edilma Perez Ramirez, alleges.
Despite this, Mar-Jac allowed Duvan to clean the equipment “without actual or constructive knowledge that Perez was under the legal age to legally perform such job duties,” according to court documents.
The Feb. 1 lawsuit, filed in the Forrest County Circuit Court, is asking for compensatory damages from Mar-Jac, Onin and other defendants, including damages for funeral and burial costs, pain and suffering and the value of future earnings Duvan would have earned.
“(The family knows) that this should not have happened,” said Hunter, who is representing the family with Biloxi attorney Jim Reeves.
The lawsuit alleges Mar-Jac’s procedure for cleaning machinery did not did not follow proper safety procedures and industry standards. Typically, the machine would be disconnected from power and a lockout would be used to prevent the machine from intentionally starting.
It also alleges Onin allowed Perez to perform a task outside of his scope due to his age and lack of training.
Attorneys representing Mar-Jac and Onin did not respond to a request for comment. The companies and other defendants have 30 days to respond to the complaint.
In a statement released shortly after Perez’s death, Mar-Jac said the company “would never knowingly put any employee, and certainly not a minor, in harm’s way” but reiterated that the staffing companies are responsible for verifying age and identification.
Other defendants named in the lawsuit are Letissha Hill, a human resources and staffing director at Mar-Jac, and John Daniels, a safety supervisor at the plant. Unknown defendants are others who may have worked for either company and those who manufactured and maintained the machinery Perez was operating when he died.
Hunter said the goal of the lawsuit is to find out why this happened to Perez and seek change to prevent other children from across the country from being placed in dangerous work conditions.
“They shouldn’t be there in the first place,” he said.
Perez was indigenous and from Guatemala, according to the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, a Jackson-based nonprofit organization that supports immigrants across the state.
The lawsuit alleges Mar-Jac has a history of worker safety issues.
Safety records show OSHA issued at least eight citations for safety violations at the plant before Perez’s death for deaths in 2020 and 2021, three amputations and injuries from a fall that required hospitalization, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit comes weeks after OSHA cited Mar-Jac for 17 violations in Duvan’s death, and 14 of them were classified as serious, totaling over $212,000 in proposed penalties.
Mar-Jac could have enforced strict safety standards, but less than a year after Perez’s death, that has not happened.
“Nothing has changed, and the company continues to treat employee safety as an afterthought, putting its workers at risk,” OSHA Regional Administrator Kurt Petermeyer said in a Jan. 16 statement.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=330199
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1997
Dec. 22, 1997
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.
In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.”
He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.”
The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi
About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.
The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.
Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.
During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.
“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”
White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.
Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.
White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.
Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.
People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.
White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.
They are correct.
But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.
As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.
Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.
That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.
Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?
If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.
The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.
In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1911
Dec. 21, 1911
Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia.
When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs.
He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame.
The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays.
Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
-
News from the South - Arkansas News Feed7 days ago
Faith-inspired ministry opens health clinic in Little Rock
-
News from the South - Florida News Feed6 days ago
‘Dirty Dancing,’ ‘Beverly Hills Cop,’ ‘Up in Smoke’ among movies entering the National Film Registry
-
Our Mississippi Home5 days ago
The Meaning of the Redbird During the Holiday Season
-
Mississippi Today4 days ago
Mississippi PERS Board endorses plan decreasing pension benefits for new hires
-
Local News1 day ago
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Biloxi Honors Veterans with Wreath-Laying Ceremony and Holiday Giving Initiative
-
News from the South - Missouri News Feed2 days ago
Could prime Albert Pujols fetch $1 billion in today's MLB free agency?
-
News from the South - North Carolina News Feed1 day ago
Social Security benefits boosted for millions in bill headed to Biden’s desk • NC Newsline
-
Mississippi Today6 days ago
On this day in 1976