Disney Co. Fined $5,000 in Death of Film Crew Member

State officials fined the Walt Disney Co. $5,000 on Tuesday for violating worker safety laws after a two-month investigation into an accident in which a Thousand Oaks man was electrocuted and another severely burned when a steel camera boom rose into high-voltage wires during filming on a remote desert movie set.

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health issued four citations against Disney, saying the company failed to post proper warning signs and institute necessary training for crew members handling the camera boom.

As the crew set up Feb. 25 to film desert backgrounds near Trona in San Bernardino County for the film “Dinosaur,” the boom suddenly swung 49 feet into the air, striking a 115,000-volt power line.

Matthew Gordy, 31, of Thousand Oaks, was electrocuted and 33-year-old David Riggio of Encino suffered serious burns to his hands, feet and chest.

In the most serious violation, the agency determined the company did not comply with a state requirement that film equipment be kept at least 10 feet away from power lines, a Cal/OSHA spokesman said.

“Our investigators found several violations, one of which was directly related to the death of an employee,” said Dean Fryer. “Now, [Disney] will be required to make corrections to come into compliance with the laws that were violated.”

Disney spokeswoman Terry Curtin declined to comment on the Cal/OSHA sanctions, citing a wrongful death suit filed against the company earlier this month in Los Angeles Superior Court.

In the lawsuit, filed on behalf of the families of Riggio and Gordy, the plaintiffs claim Disney “negligently managed, oversaw and organized, and supervised the production.” They asked for unspecified compensatory damages.

The manufacturer of the camera boom, Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment Inc., is also named in the suit, which alleges that defects in the construction and design of the equipment also contributed to the accident.

The attorney for the families, Larry Feldman, said Tuesday that the results of the Cal/OSHA investigation did not come as a surprise but failed to answer fundamental questions.

“The OSHA report fails to answer why this specific site was selected [by Disney] and why they chose a piece of equipment that didn’t have a fail-safe device to prevent it from coming into contact with the wires,” Feldman said.

State investigators established that Gordy and Riggio were helping set up a camera boom--a metal arm mounted on a flatbed trailer--to film live-action sequences in Poison Canyon when something threw a counterweight on the device off balance.

Fryer acknowledged that state investigators could not pinpoint a cause. But whatever it was, he said, the boom soared upward and hit the Inyo-Kern-Searls power line, causing electricity to surge through the steel structure.

The injured men were rushed from the remote location to Ridgecrest Hospital 16 miles to the east.

Gordy died at 10:15 a.m., shortly after his arrival, while Riggio was examined and transferred to the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital.

Riggio has been released from the hospital and is recovering from injuries his lawyer termed serious.