Worker was fatally shocked when he touched a 440‑volt space heater that had been altered to fit an outlet
Clearwater Seafoods has been ordered to pay a total of $150,000 in connection with the 2024 workplace death of a crew member on one of its clam vessels in Nova Scotia.
The company was sentenced in Port Hawkesbury provincial court after pleading guilty to two charges under Nova Scotia’s Occupational Health and Safety Act arising from the death of 36‑year‑old worker Scott Dicks, according to CBC.
Canadian Occupational Safety (COS) previously reported that Dicks, of Grand Bank, N.L., died in February 2024 while working on the clam-harvesting vessel Anne Risley during a maintenance refit in the port of Mulgrave, N.S. COS also reported that Clearwater pleaded guilty in March 2026 to two of five provincial safety charges laid under the Act.
Incident and technical details
An agreed statement of facts presented at sentencing said Dicks was electrocuted after coming into contact with a 440‑volt industrial space heater on board the vessel, CBC reported. The heater was being used during the refit while the Anne Risley was docked.
The court heard that the heater was originally equipped with a five‑prong plug compatible with outlets in the engine room. At some point before the incident, an employee cut off that plug and replaced it with a four‑prong plug so the heater could be used on a different circuit elsewhere on the vessel.
The modification allowed the unit to be powered from another outlet but left it improperly wired and created a fatal electrical hazard, according to evidence outlined in court and reported by CBC. Dicks was in the cook room with three other workers when he came into contact with the heater and was fatally electrocuted.
Sentencing and penalty structure
Under a joint submission accepted by the court, the $150,000 penalty includes a $70,000 fine and a $10,500 victim surcharge. Clearwater must also pay $19,500 to a provincial workplace health and safety education trust and fund an independent safety review of its operations at a cost of $50,000, CBC reported.
Crown attorney Paul Niefer told the court the overall penalty is in the mid‑range for workplace fatality cases, while noting that fines are difficult to compare because each case turns on its own facts, according to CBC. He said the sanction is intended to ensure the company does not treat non‑compliance with safety obligations as a routine cost of doing business.
The court was told that Clearwater operates 15 vessels and six processing plants in several countries, employs more than 1,000 workers in Canada and recorded more than $575 million in revenue in 2024, CBC reported. These figures were entered into the record to provide context for the size and capacity of the employer facing the sentence.
Findings, admissions response
Court records show Clearwater admitted it failed to properly install, maintain or use the industrial space heater, and failed to take every precaution in its use, including providing adequate training, instruction and supervision for workers. Those admissions formed the basis of the two charges to which the company pleaded guilty, COS previously reported.
Victim impact statements were filed by Dicks’s sister, Patricia Osmond, his mother, Ellen Keeping, and his partner, who described the ongoing effect of the death on the family, according to CBC. Dicks left behind a wife and three children.
Earlier in the proceedings, Clearwater said in a written statement that it was “deeply saddened” by Dicks’s death and that it was co‑operating fully with authorities, COS reported. The company described Dicks as “a valued and experienced member of the Clearwater clam fleet crew” and said its “thoughts and heartfelt sympathies remain with Scott’s family as well as his shipmates, who are a family at sea.”
