We all heard the news today;
Hultgren Construction has been sentenced to one-year probation for “willful violation of the OSHA Act, causing death to an employee.†The company pleaded guilty to the federal misdemeanor in September.
They were also issued a $50 fine (which I doubt they will pay since the LLC is bankrupt).
While I could go on about worker safety laws in SD and even nationally and the lack of any local investigation of the collapse, I want to talk about something else; How easy it is to form and dissolve LLC’s in SD, something our MSM in SD needs to dig in a little;
To dissolve your Limited Liability Company in South Dakota, there is a $10 filing fee required.
I believe the charge to form an LLC with the state is around $150.
While Hultgren and others involved with this mess are paying a separate settlement, the LLC’s that were formed and dissolved throughout this have protected ‘the people’ involved.
I know I have beat this dead horse before, but our state legislature is a joke. Only in SD we would find it appropriate to charge people with a crime for ingestion, think industrial hemp is recreational pot, but if someone collapses a building do to negligence and kills a person, they walk away with NO jail and a $50 fine.
We need to start lawfully connecting LLC’s to ‘PEOPLE’. You know, the people who own them. An LLC is just a piece of paper, it can’t kill anyone on it’s own.
I would hope our legislature would revisit our LLC laws, but since a lot of the members probably own a lot of LLC’s themselves, I won’t hold my breath. Another sad, sad, sad day for justice and workers in South Dakota.