(Bloomberg Law) -- The production company overseeing the Western film where Alec Baldwin was holding a handgun that fatally shot a crew member was cited Wednesday by New Mexico authorities for not protecting the movie’s cast and crew.

The New Mexico Occupational Safety and Health Bureau cited Rust Movie Productions LLC, based in Thomasville, Ga., with a violation of the general duty clause, which requires employers to provide workplaces free of known, potentially fatal hazards that can be mitigated, and proposed a $136,793 fine.

Rust was cited for “the plain indifference to the recognized hazards associated with the use of firearms on set that resulted in a fatality, severe injury, and unsafe working conditions,” the safety agency said.

“Our investigation found that this tragic incident never would have happened if Rust Movie Productions LLC had followed national film industry standards for firearm safety,” said state Environment Cabinet Secretary James Kenney. “This is a complete failure of the employer to follow recognized national protocols that keep employees safe.”

The company can appeal the citation to the New Mexico Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

Unsafe Factor Allegations

New Mexico in December obtained a subpoena from the the state’s First Judicial District court to require testimony from the film company’s supervisors, according court records.

The shooting death happened Oct. 21 while crew members and Baldwin were rehearsing a scene inside a movie set church. Baldwin was handling a handgun that fired a live round, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has denied firing the gun and knowing there was a real bullet in the chamber.

In addition to the New Mexico safety case, Hutchins’ family and crew members have filed lawsuits in New Mexico and California seeking damages against Rust Movie Productions. The lawsuits claim film industry weapon safety protocols were violated, and that a gun loaded with a live round shouldn’t have been allowed on the set, much less in a performer’s hand.

Script supervisor Mamie Mitchell in a lawsuit filed Nov. 17 in the Superior Court of the State of California for Los Angeles County alleged that “days before the shooting, a camera operator had reported two unexpected gun discharges during a rehearsal in a cabin” and that “on the day of the shooting, union camera operators and their assistants had walked off the job to protest working conditions, including concerns about safety.”

Serge Svetnoy, a lighting technician who was standing near Hutchins when she was shot, said in his Nov. 10 Los Angeles County lawsuit that inadequate staffing and training contributed to the accident.

“The presence of this live ammunition on the Rust set and in the Colt Revolver, without adequate safeguards, was a violation of not only Bulletins 1 and 2 issued by the Industry-Wide Labor-Management Safety Committee for the Motion Picture and Television Industry but also a host of other basic industry safety standards,” the lawsuit said.

Other Production Deaths

The Rust Movie Productions case is at least the third movie or television set death to lead to citations from worker safety agencies in the past decade.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 2014 fined the company producing a Gregg Allman biopic “Midnight Rider” $70,000 for the death of a camera assistant and endangering about 20 other workers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta upheld the citation and fine.

In that instance, the crew was filming on a rural Georgia railroad bridge trestle, without the permission of the railway, when a train unexpectedly crossed the bridge, trapping crew members on the span while the train struck the film set. Debris from the set struck and killed a camera assistant.

The movie’s director, Randall Miller, pleaded guilty to state charges of involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespassing and was sentenced to two years in prison.

The production company for the television series “The Walking Dead” was fined $12,674 by federal OSHA in 2018 for the death of a stuntman. The performer fell about 24 feet from a set balcony, landing on a concrete floor instead of a pad. The case was closed with a settlement between OSHA and Stalwart Films LLC of Senoia, Ga.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bruce Rolfsen in Washington at BRolfsen@bloomberglaw.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Genevieve Douglas at gdouglas@bloomberglaw.com; Martha Mueller Neff at mmuellerneff@bloomberglaw.com; Andrew Harris at aharris@bloomberglaw.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.