As food enjoyers, we rarely think about the safety of those who bring food to our tables.

But when Dustin Clover’s lawsuit revealed that his injuries resulted from outdated equipment, it cast doubt on agriculture companies like Crookham’s commitment to worker well-being.

An Unsettling Accident in the Fields

In November 2018, Dustin Clover was assigned to monitor irrigation drip tape at Crookham’s seed plot. His task was to sit on a seat at the rear of a drip tape lifter attached to a tractor, signaling the driver to stop when the tape broke. That day, Clover was thrown forward when the driver halted abruptly, causing his arm and torso to be pulled into the machine’s moving rollers. His injuries were severe: fractures, joint damage, and facial abrasions marked only the visible aftermath of a harrowing experience.

A History of OSHA Incidents

This isn’t Crookham’s first encounter with safety concerns. In a 2016 incident, an employee was fatally injured due to insufficient guarding on a seed sorting machine. That tragedy led to a damning report by OSHA, revealing serious violations around machinery guarding and the company’s approach to “lockout-tagout” procedures meant to prevent accidental machine startups during maintenance.

Yet, despite the gravity of the 2016 incident, Crookham did not extend these safety learnings to the drip tape lifter—an oversight Clover’s legal team pointed to as gross negligence. They argued Crookham showed “deliberate ignorance” by failing to consult OSHA regulations in the lifter’s design or conduct any safety evaluations.

Exclusive Remedy Rule and “Unprovoked Aggression” Exception

Central to this lawsuit is Idaho’s Worker’s Compensation Act, which typically restricts employees to workers’ compensation claims alone, shielding employers from civil liability. Clover attempted to invoke an exception within this law—reserved for cases of “willful or unprovoked physical aggression”—to argue that Crookham’s actions constituted a hostile disregard for worker safety. The courts, however, were unconvinced, noting that Clover had not provided sufficient evidence that Crookham acted with specific intent to harm or a conscious disregard for a known hazard.

Limitations of the Law

Unfortunately, the Idaho Supreme Court sided with Crookham, asserting that Clover’s injuries were, regrettably, a consequence of employment risks covered by workers’ compensation.

The court highlighted that no formal complaints had been lodged about the drip tape lifter’s safety since its 2008 deployment and that Crookham’s employee manuals, while outlining general safety policies, did not constitute a specific enough warning of imminent danger.

Clover’s additional submission of expert testimony from Dr. Adam Aleksander, who argued that the machine’s design likely violated basic safety protocols, was excluded due to procedural rules about timing. The court ruled that Clover’s legal team had presented this evidence too late.

So in other words, Crookham won the case on a technicality.

In tiny communities like Caldwell, where job opportunities may be few, workers often feel compelled to accept risky conditions without question. The cost of these risks, both human and economic, tends to fall heavily on workers like Clover, whose physical suffering and years-long legal battle underscore an imbalance in power that remains difficult to redress.

Crookham’s website is https://www.crookham.com/

They are located at 301 Ware House St, Caldwell, ID 83605