A Massachusetts contractor is looking at $4,699,362 in proposed OSHA penalties after a trench collapse in November 2025 killed one worker and seriously injured another. The company is Revoli Construction Co. Inc., and the worksite was in Yarmouth.
Here is what happened: workers were removing sandy soil and installing steel plates outside a trench. The backfilled sand gave way. Two workers were trapped. One did not make it home.
OSHA came in and found a mess. Seven willful citations. Thirty-three repeat violations. Seventeen serious violations. The agency cited the company for failing to provide a safe exit from the trench, no adequate cave-in protection, unsupported underground utilities, spoil piles within two feet of the excavation edge, failing to install shoring per the engineering design, using a damaged protective system, and exposing workers to electrical and fall hazards on top of everything else.
Seven willful citations. That means OSHA believes the employer knew the rules and chose not to follow them anyway. That is not a paperwork problem. That is a culture problem.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer put it plainly: "This cave-in is a solemn reminder of the dangers construction workers face when basic safety procedures and safe engineering solutions are ignored."
She is right. Trench collapses are not freak accidents. They are predictable. Soil moves. Sandy soil moves fast. The physics here are not a mystery to anyone who has ever picked up a shovel. The OSHA regulations covering trenching and excavation exist because people have died in exactly this way, over and over, for decades.
The contractor has 15 business days to comply, request an informal conference, or contest the findings. Whatever happens next in the legal process, a worker is still dead.
If you run a crew that digs, this case is required reading. The violations listed here are not obscure technical footnotes. They are the basics.
Best Practices and Tips
Before you dig:
- Have a competent person inspect the trench daily and after any rain, vibration, or change in conditions
- Classify the soil. Sandy soil is Type C. It cannot be left unprotected.
- Get an engineering design for your shoring system and actually follow it
- Never pile spoil within two feet of the trench edge
While the job is running:
- Provide a safe means of entry and exit (ladder, ramp, or stairway) within 25 feet of every worker in a trench four feet deep or more
- Inspect your protective systems for damage before use and do not put damaged equipment in service
- Locate and support underground utilities before work begins
- Keep unauthorized personnel out of the trench zone
The culture piece:
- Willful violations happen when workers or supervisors know what is wrong and decide it is not worth fixing. That is a management problem first. Build a crew where someone can say "this is not right" without losing their job.
One trench. One bad decision compounded by six more. One family that lost somebody. The $4.7 million fine is the least of the damage here.