The company that operates a Hattiesburg poultry plant where a 16-year-old employee died last year while cleaning a machine has settled with the federal agency tasked with worker safety. 

Mar-Jac Poultry agreed to pay nearly $165,000 in fines and implement safety measures to protect employees from well-known machine hazards, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Wednesday. 

The night of July 14, 2023, Duvan Perez was cleaning a deboning machine at the plant when the machine turned on and pulled him in, Occupational Safety and Health Administration found in its investigation of the incident. 

“Tragically, a teenage boy died needlessly before Mar-Jac Poultry took required steps to protect its workers,” OSHA Regional Administrator Kurt Petermeyer said in a statement. “ …  Enhanced supervision and increased training can go a long way toward minimizing risks faced by workers in meat processing facilities.”

In addition to addressing the violations, the company must implement several enhancements relating to the use of lockout/tagout standards, which are procedures to shut down equipment before maintenance and other activities are performed. The enhancements include training, a risk and hazard assessment of current procedures and monthly audits for its use on the sanitation shift for a year. 

Earlier this year, OSHA cited Mar-Jac for 17 violations relating to Perez’s death, with 14 classified as serious and proposed over $212,000 in penalties. Records also show the company issued at least eight citations at the Hattiesburg plant between 2020 and 2021 – incidents that included deaths, amputations and other injuries. 

“Mar-Jac was aware of these safety problems for years and had been warned and fined by OSHA, yet did nothing. Hopefully, Mar-Jac will follow through this time so that no other worker is killed in such a senseless manner,” Biloxi attorney Jim Reeves, who represents Perez’s family,  said in a Friday statement. 

Perez’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Mar-Jac, agency Onin Staffing and others in February. As of Friday, that case is ongoing in the Forrest County Circuit Court. 

Federal child labor laws prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from working in meat processing plants because of the dangerous machinery. 

Mar-Jac and other defendants, such as the staffing agency that placed Perez at the plant, denied the allegations of the lawsuit. 

In a statement released shortly after the teenager’s death, Mar-Jac said staffing companies are responsible for verifying employee’s age and identification. Additionally, an attorney for Mar-Jac told NBC News last year that the teenager used identification of a 32-year-old man to get the job. 

Perez’s case was also highlighted in the NBC documentary about child labor in slaughterhouses. 

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