Labor Department acts against Burlington Township firm, Vernon and Shirley Hill
BURLINGTON TWP. – A manufacturing firm here faces potential fines of almost $500,000 after inspections by a federal safety regulator.
United Hospital Supply Corp. also has been placed in a “severe violator enforcement program,” according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The announcement marked the Labor Department's second major action involving a Burlington County firm in the past year.
The department in November said Moorestown banker Vernon Hill II and his wife, Shirley, had agreed to pay about $2 million to restore “mismanaged assets” to a retirement plan at design firm InterArch Inc.
Employer: Greed got the best of him Vineland man admits to embezzling almost $850K. How did he do it?
A consent order for the payment and penalties was reached after an investigation into the Moorestown firm by the Employee Benefits Security Administration.
OSHA investigates after worker loses fingers
In the Burlington Township case, OSHA launched two investigations in November 2022 after a worker lost three fingers in an accident at the business, which operates under the name of Lab Design.
The review found company supervisors and employees had deliberately bypassed a mechanism intended to protect against amputations at the Route 130 business, OSHA alleged.
A company representative could not be reached for comment.
The firm makes steel cabinets, lockers and other metal products for hospitals, laboratories and schools, according to OSHA.
It employs about 100 workers, the agency said.
OSHA: Workplace welding fumes excessive
Among other allegations, OSHA said the firm allowed welding fumes to exceed permitted levels, did not provide respirators when needed, and failed to take steps to prevent machines from starting accidentally.
OSHA previously cited the firm for safety violations in 2010 and 2015.
The Labor Department agency proposed penalties of about $498,500 for 21 violations, including three that were considered willful.
The company has a 15-day period to contest OSHA’s findings.
Vernon and Shirley Hill sued over retirement-plan investments
Separately, the Labor Department said the Hills, who were fiduciaries for the InterArch fund, invested its assets "in an undiversified manner in two companies in which (they) had significant ties."
The consent judgment required InterArch and the Hills to pay $1.8 million to plan participants and almost $185,000 in penalties to resolve a lawsuit brought by the Labor Department.
The lawsuit asserted the Hills invested nearly 70 percent of the plans assets in the stock of London-based Metro Bank, which Vernon Hill cofounded in 2010. It said a sharp drop in the stock's value caused the plan to lose millions of dollars in value.
It said they also invested at least 13 percent of the plan's assets in Republic First Bancorp Inc., a Philadelphia bank firm led by Vernon Hill from 2008 until last year.
Fiduciaries are barred from using plan assets for their own interests, Cristina O'Brien, an EBSA administrator, said in announcing the September 2020 consent order.
The undiversified investments were made from at least August 2016 through the plan June 2020 termination.
The Hills agreed to the case's resolution "without contest," the consent order says.
The Hills and InterArch Inc. also agreed in December 2022 to pay about $1.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of profit-sharing plan participants.
An attorney for the Hills could not be reached for comment.
Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email him at jwalsh@cpsj.com.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Vernon and Shirley Hill pay millions, Burlington firm faces penalties
