A Taiwan court has handed prison terms to a steel company owner and his daughter after a driver was crushed to death unloading steel coils, a warning shot for employers who skip basic safety measures.

• A driver hauling steel coils to a firm in Taichung was killed when a coil weighing over 100 kilograms toppled onto him as he cut the packing straps.
• Prosecutors found the company gave him no equipment to stop the load from shifting and assigned no one to supervise the unloading.
• The owner got four months and his daughter, the company's workplace safety manager, got three months with a two-year suspension; the company was fined.
• Both admitted the failures and had already settled with the family, which the judge weighed in their favor.

Outlook: The ruling can still be appealed, and it puts pressure on small industrial firms to tighten loading and unloading rules or face criminal liability.