Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc.

Plain-English summary

The Eleventh Circuit vacated a judge's second dismissal of the Jacksonville Shipyards case as moot. The court held that the case remained live because the Secretary continued to seek civil penalties for alleged past violations even though the company no longer had employees. The Commission reinstated four contested citations and proposed penalties totaling $692,000. It remanded for an expedited hearing on the merits because no merits hearing had yet occurred. The order does not identify the cited standards.

Decision snapshot

• Cited standard(s): Not identified in the order.
• Outcome: Remanded. Four citations and $692,000 in proposed penalties were reinstated for expedited merits proceedings.
• Key point: Ending employment operations does not moot an OSHA contest while the Secretary still seeks civil penalties for alleged past violations.

Full text (OSHRC public release)

SECRETARY OF LABOR,
              Complainant,
                    v.                         OSHRC Docket No. 92-0888
JACKSONVILLE SHIPYARDS, INC.,
               Respondent.




                                     ORDER

Before: WEISBERG, Chairman; MONTOYA and GUTTMAN, Commissioners.
BY THE COMMISSION:
This case is before the Commission on remand from the United States Court of Appeals
for the Eleventh Circuit. Reich v. O.S.H.R.C. (Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc.),102 F.3d 1200
(11th Cir. 1997). In its decision, the court vacated an order in which Commission
Administrative Law Judge John H. Frye, III, had dismissed this case for the second time on
the ground of mootness.1 The court held that this proceeding is not moot because the

1
In Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc., 16 BNA OSHC 2053, 2055, 1993-95 CCH OSHD ¶ 30,539,
p. 42,229 (No. 92-0888, 1994), a Commission majority, with Chairman Weisberg dissenting,
held that an employer-initiated contest proceeding is rendered moot “where the employer has
effectively corrected the alleged violations by terminating its employees and where there is
no reasonable likelihood that the employer will resume the employment relationship.” It
remanded this case to Judge Frye for a determination of whether changes in Jacksonville
Shipyards’ status and operations since the entry of the judge’s initial dismissal order had
(continued...)
 2

Secretary of Labor continues to seek the assessment of civil penalties for Jacksonville
Shipyards’ alleged past violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 29
U.S.C. §§ 651-678 (“the Act”). See 102 F.3d at 1202.
The effect of the court’s decision was to reinstate the four contested citations, alleging
serious, willful, repeated, and other than serious violations of the Act, respectively, and the
corresponding proposed penalties, which total $692,000. Since a hearing has not yet been
held on the merits of these alleged violations and penalty proposals, we remand this case to
Judge Frye for further proceedings consistent with the court’s decision. Given the age of this
case, we order those proceedings to be expedited. See 29 C.F.R. § 2200.103.

                                               /s/
                                               Stuart E. Weisberg
                                               Chairman


                                               /s/
                                               Velma Montoya
                                               Commissioner


                                               /s/
                                               Daniel Guttman
                                               Commissioner

Dated: March 21, 1997

1
(...continued)
rendered the case moot. 16 BNA OSHC at 2055, 1993-95 CCH OSHD at p. 42,230. On
remand, Judge Frye found, on the basis of supplemental evidence, that Jacksonville
Shipyards no longer had any employees. He therefore dismissed the case for the second time,
on the ground that it had become moot under the Commission’s test, supra.