The Crown has stayed charges against the driver of the semi truck that crushed Integra Tire technician Denis Chabot in 2011, replacing them with a fine and effectively ending 2 1/2 years of legal confrontation arising from the tragedy.

Alan Lelievre, 56, faces a $3,000 penalty "as an alternative to prosecution,” according to a release from the Yukon Workers' Compensation Health and Safety Board.

Kurt Dieckmann, director of its corporate services branch, said there was nothing to be gained by forcing another trial.

"Mr. Lelievre has accepted his responsibility in this matter and so, as an alternative to a long, complicated court proceeding, we are resolving this as an administrative penalty,” Dieckmann said.

The territorial Occupational Health and Safety Act states that if "a safety officer believes on reasonable grounds that a person has committed an offence ... then, as an alternative to prosecution for the offence, the officer may levy an administrative penalty.”

The penalty can range up to $5,000, though Lelievre's matches the $3,000 fine handed down to Frank Taylor, his boss at North 60 Petro, last Friday in Yukon Supreme Court.

Taylor was convicted of failing to enforce Lelievre's mandatory walk-around check to make sure the area was clear of hazards before he climbed into North 60's Kenworth tractor and began to drive out of the Integra Tire lot on Nov. 15, 2011.

Chabot, age 34 at the time, was likely reaching under the truck for a bottle jack at the precise moment the vehicle lurched into gear.

"We have every confidence the driver will not get behind the wheel again without doing a formal walk-around and inspection of his vehicle,” Dieckmann said.

Lelievre was initially fined under Occupational Health and Safety regulations for:

• failing to properly inspect the Kenworth to ensure it would "not cause any undue risk of injury to workers in the area”;

• operating mobile equipment without "adequate training in (its) safe use”; and

• moving the truck without taking precautions to protect "any other worker from injury.”

"The difference between prosecuting through the courts and administrating the penalty is the level of fine that's available,” Dieckmann said in an interview today.

Penalties doled out in Yukon courtrooms for similar types of workplace safety breaches are capped at $150,000 for first-time offences, rather than the administrative maximum of $5,000.

The charges against Lelievre can technically be resurrected within a year.

Acceptance of the fines is tantamount to an admission of the breaches, Dieckmann said.

Contacted by the Star this morning, Lelievre, who still works at North 60, declined comment on the matter.

None of the charges were criminal and the question of intent was never at issue.

"It's not really about the penalty; it's about changing behaviour,” said Richard Mostyn, a spokesperson for the workers' compensation board.

"We want people to know that you have to do certain tasks to protect people's lives and livelihoods.

"We don't know what benefit would be gained by going through another long court fight,” he told the Star. "What else could be accomplished at this point?”

Following a trial last November, the territorial court fined Integra Tire, a local tire company, $48,750 for failing to have proper lockout procedures in place. North 60, a fuel transport franchise, was fined $43,000 for failing to train its workers in proper walk-around procedures.

"There were a series of failures ... that led to the tragedy,” Judge# Faulkner told the court last Friday. "A proper lockout would have prevented this accident.”

He was referring to Integra Tire's failure to have a legally required policy to ensure keys to the ignition remain outside a vehicle until the driver arrives.

Faulkner said in his decision from January the procedure is "designed so that a vehicle cannot be energized or moved when the technician working on it does not expect it” — precisely what happened to Chabot when he was partially under the Kenworth semi on that fateful November afternoon.

North 60 did have a policy for walk-around procedures, but failed to execute it.

"It is one thing to have a policy, and quite another to make it a part of everyday practice,” Faulkner said.

That Lelievre did not walk around the vehicle meant he did not spot the torque wrench leaning against its rear, which likely would have alerted him to the fact that work may not yet have been completed.

Chabot himself was not under the vehicle until right before the driver departed, however.