Jose Melena had been busy cleaning a 35-foot-long industrial oven at Bumble Bee Foods when a co-worker, believing Jose to be in the bathroom, filled the pressure cooker with over five tonnes of canned tuna.
The factory worker was trapped inside the machine when it was switched on.
When a supervisor noticed that the 62-year-old was missing, an announcement was made over the intercom and colleagues quickly began to search for him.
His body was found two hours later when the pressure cooker, which reached temperatures of 132C, was switched off and opened.
Now Bumble Bee Foods, its plant operations director Angel Rodriguez and former safety manager Saul Florez have been charged with three counts of violating health and safety rules.
The charges specify that the company and the two men wilfully violated rules that require implementing a safety plan, rules for workers entering confined spaces, and a procedure to keep machinery or equipment turned off if someone's working on it.
The two men could face up to three years in prison if found guilty, not to mention large fines.
Bumble Bee Foods faces a maximum fine of $1.5 million.
The Los Angeles company have released a statement about the October 2012 incident, saying that they disagree with the charges brought against them, and that they “remain devastated by the loss of our colleague Jose Melena in the tragic accident."