$9.8M Settlement
The Stritmatter Firm filed a lawsuit in the wake of Sergey Devyatkin’s death which occurred on his first day of work during the 2020 City of Marysville Biosolids Removal and Reuse Project. Devyatkin tragically lost his life while cleaning a wastewater drainage machine, falling into an unprotected sewage augur. The investigations revealed grave safety lapses, including the absence of machine interlocks and protective guards, and the routine dismissal of safety protocols by American Process Group, Inc.
A sewage screening unit with unprotected augurs at the Marysville Wastewater Treatment Plant in Marysville, Washington. Sergey Devyatkin was assigned to clean the augurs while working the night shift at the 2020 City of Marysville Biosolids Removal and Reuse Project.
Although the City of Marysville had reserved to itself contract authority over project safety, it had done nothing to ensure worker safety, other than to approve its contractor’s plans. Furthermore, American Process Group, Inc. had a history of neglecting safety protocols for efficiency. Daniel Laurence, an attorney representing the estate, commented, “The defendants knew this machine would eventually kill someone in a most gruesome way unless good luck prevailed.”
Mr. Devyatkin’s sole survivor is his mother, Galina Glebova. A recent change to Washington law removed the bar to claims made by parents who live overseas for wrongful death of their children. The settlement funds were paid by insurers for American Process Group, which had agreed to indemnify the City and the Synagro defendants, and by the latter’s insurer. The estate used some of the settlement funds to reimburse the Department of Labor & Industries, which had paid a survivor pension to Mr. Devyatkin’s mother.