Federal agency decisions, searchable in plain English.
Workplace-safety cases from the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) and mine-safety cases from the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (FMSHRC), each with a plain-English summary, the standards it cites, and whether it counts as precedent. More agencies are coming.
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Hospitality Management, Inc., d/b/a Executive Inn
Serious electrical violation affirmed after a maintenance worker was electrocuted
Hospitality Management ran the Executive Inn hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. OSHA inspected after a referral from the Fulton County Fire Department and cited the company for a serious violation of the electrical safety standard at 29 C.F.R. § 1910.333(a)(1), which requires live parts to be deenergized…
Alan Gregor, d/b/a Gregor Construction Company
Missing-safety-program citation affirmed against a metal-framing subcontractor
OSHA inspected a community-college construction site in Niceville, Florida, after a worker fell 85 feet to his death from a scaffold. That worker did not work for Gregor Construction, the metal-framing subcontractor, but the inspection led OSHA to cite Gregor for three serious violations. After the…
CBI Na-Con, Inc.
"shall be provided" does not require the employer to pay for welding gloves
CBI Na-Con, a construction contractor and subsidiary of Chicago Bridge & Iron, ran a site in Geismar, Louisiana where it employed over 50 welders and required them to wear welding gloves. OSHA cited the company for an other-than-serious violation of 29 C.F.R. § 1926.95(a), the construction personal…
D. A. Collins Constr. Co., Inc.
Foreman's tie-off violations defeated misconduct defense
Collins carpenters stripped bridge formwork from a temporary platform 34 feet above the ground. A carpenter fell from the bridge and died, and OSHA cited the company for fall-protection violations. Two carpenters routinely crossed the unguarded platform without tying off, and their foreman observed…
Hemphill Construction Co., Inc.
Repeat trench spoil-pile violation affirmed
Hemphill installed a water line in a trench while a backhoe placed excavated soil at the trench edge. An OSHA regional investigator observed employees enter the trench with the spoil pile nearby and photographed the condition. The judge credited that testimony despite the investigator's lack of…
Citadel Corporation
Excavation and training citations vacated
Citadel Corporation was the general contractor for construction of two apartment buildings on the Georgia Tech campus. OSHA alleged that Citadel failed to train employees about excavation hazards, lacked a competent person to inspect excavations, and willfully failed to protect employees from…
National Engineering & Contracting Company
Willful crane-overturn items vacated, seat-belt and ladder items affirmed serious, $2,500
National Engineering & Contracting was the general contractor on an Ohio Department of Transportation soil-erosion project along a ravine in Lakewood, Ohio. A 28-ton Grove crane overturned into the ravine on August 19, 1994, injuring the operator, which prompted an OSHA inspection and two…
The Velotta Company
A general contractor must keep hazard-communication records for the lead paints its subcontractors use near its own workers
The Velotta Company was the general contractor on a bridge rehabilitation project, the Norwood Lateral, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Subcontractors did the lead-paint blasting and repainting inside containments, but Velotta's carpenters and laborers sometimes had to work right next to those areas, and on…
General Cutlery Co., Inc.
Knife maker loses on almost every safety and health citation, including a willful hazard-communication violation
General Cutlery makes bayonets and household knives in Fremont, Ohio. After complaint inspections in May 1994, OSHA issued two sets of citations, later consolidated: safety violations (Docket No. 94-2015) and health violations (Docket No. 94-1933). The company, represented by its president, argued…
Mobile River Terminal Co., Inc.
Gangway citation vacated because its foot overlapped the apron
Mobile River Terminal Co., Inc. operated a marine terminal in Mobile Bay, Alabama. OSHA cited the company under the rule requiring a railed walkway when a ship's gangway foot is more than one foot from the edge of the apron. The compliance officer testified that the closest edge of the gangway…
Fibres South, Inc.
Unguarded yarn rollers and missing lockout review produce $4,800
Fibres South, Inc. manufactured synthetic fiber on a line that included a seven-roller Godet machine with exposed in-running nip points. The manufacturer had supplied an interlocked guard, but the company stopped using it in 1986 and required operators to cut fiber wraps from moving rollers with…
Career Training Institute
Missed employee-training deadlines produce $10,900 in failure-to-abate penalties
Career Training Institute operated vocational programs in Orlando, including medical-assistance and phlebotomy training. After an initial OSHA citation became final, the school did not provide bloodborne-pathogen training to its exposed employees by the abatement date and did not give…
Jaxon Industrial Services, Inc.
EAJA fee request denied
Jaxon Industrial Services was cleaning a nonhazardous black-liquor spill at a Jacksonville paper mill when OSHA cited it for lacking an emergency response plan. The original hazardous-waste emergency-response allegation was dismissed, and the alternative emergency-action-plan citation was later…
Noble Steel, Inc.
Rebar and access violations affirmed, $2,250 assessed
Noble Steel employees worked inside a roughly 10-foot-deep chlorine filter basin at an Oklahoma water-treatment project. Vertical reinforcing steel protruded from the floor without effective impalement protection, and employees entered and left by climbing rebar held by wire ties instead of using a…
Pyramid Masonry Contractors, Inc.
Scaffold-pinning citation vacated, uplift not proven
Pyramid Masonry Contractors was laying concrete block and brick from tubular welded frame scaffolds at the Galleria project in Atlanta, Georgia. After an OSHA inspection, the Secretary dropped one citation and part of another, leaving a single item: that the scaffold panels were not pinned together…
Gardner Fire Protection
Trench egress and cave-in items affirmed, daily-inspection item vacated
Gardner Fire Protection, a small pro se contractor, was installing sewer and fire-hydrant lines at a KOA campground in Seminole, Florida. A December 1992 OSHA inspection came the day after a broken water line flooded the excavation overnight and eroded one wall. OSHA cited four serious…
Pit-Stop, Inc. (Uniroyal Pitstop)
Unguarded service pit affirmed as a serious violation, $100
Pit-Stop, Inc., operating as Uniroyal Pitstop in Midwest City, Oklahoma, ran an automotive shop where workers used floor pits about 3 feet wide, 5 feet deep, and 10 feet long to reach the underside of vehicles for oil changes and grease jobs. OSHA cited the shop after an inspection found several of…
D & J Manufacturing Inc.
Four repeat hazard-communication violations affirmed
D & J Manufacturing makes custom printed advertising specialties and novelties in Toledo, Ohio, using inks, solvents, adhesives, and pigments. OSHA had cited the company in 1992 for hazard-communication failures, and those citations became final. A February 1993 follow-up inspection found the same…
T & S Utilities, Inc.
Training, ladder, hard-hat, and fatality-reporting violations affirmed
T & S Utilities installed sewage-pump-station lines in Fort Myers, Florida, and employees worked inside manholes at the site. The judge vacated a general duty clause allegation because a specific confined-space training standard covered the condition and the record did not show actual atmospheric…
Danella Construction Corporation of Florida, Inc.
Inspection and power-line-clearance items vacated
Danella Construction was installing telephone lines in Lake Worth, Florida, and used a boom truck to place an eight-foot trench shield. OSHA alleged that the company failed to have competent-person inspections and operated the boom within 10 feet of energized overhead lines. The judge found that…
Southern Forming, Inc.
Broad safety violations affirmed at $69,150
Southern Forming, also known as Suncrete Construction, performed concrete formwork at construction sites in Sunny Isles and Delray Beach, Florida. At the Sunny Isles site, an employee fell to his death from a stairway, and OSHA's investigation identified numerous fall-protection, stairway…
Ludwig-McIntosh Bulk Haulers, Inc.
Willful eye-protection citation reduced to serious
Ludwig-McIntosh hauled industrial coke and maintained its vehicles in a Toledo shop where drilling, grinding, welding, and coke dust created eye hazards. A mechanic was struck in the eye by a drill bit while his safety glasses were pushed up on his forehead. The judge found conflicting and…
Super Sky Products, Inc.
Atrium fall-protection violations affirmed
A Super Sky employee was water-testing a sloped glass atrium in Cleveland while working from a narrow gutter high above the patio below. A Labor Department attorney and OSHA supervisor watched through binoculars and saw that the employee was not tied to the safety line, although Super Sky disputed…
Container Corporation of America
Three disputed paper-mill safety items vacated
Container Corporation of America operated a paper mill in Fernandina Beach, Florida. The parties settled most citation issues before the hearing, leaving three items concerning wet and oily floors, protective clothing for welders, and insulation or guarding of steam pipes. The judge vacated the…
Ocean Concrete Contractors, Inc.
Floor-opening and rebar hazards affirmed
Ocean Concrete was a subcontractor constructing a building at the Naval Submarine Base at Kings Bay, Georgia. Employees worked at the edges of an unguarded five-by-eight-foot stairwell opening and an unguarded open-sided platform about eight feet above the ground. They also worked near uncapped…
A.R. Contractors, Inc.
LP-gas traffic-protection citation vacated
A.R. Contractors used two liquid-petroleum gas tanks to fuel roofing operations at a Florida commercial construction project. OSHA alleged that the tanks were exposed to possible damage from construction traffic without adequate precautions. The judge rejected the contractor's argument that the…
Redondo Construction Corporation
Ladder and repeat guardrail violations affirmed
Redondo Construction was the general contractor for a pier and passenger-terminal project in San Juan, Puerto Rico. OSHA found a portable ladder whose side rails did not extend three feet above the landing and that lacked a required grabrail, even though employees used it for access. OSHA also…
What these documents are
- Commission decisions: Rulings by the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission itself, the highest level of agency review. These are citable as Commission precedent, though a decision may have been appealed to a U.S. Court of Appeals after issuance.
- ALJ decisions: Rulings by OSHRC Administrative Law Judges after a hearing. When no Commissioner directs review, an ALJ decision becomes a final order under 29 U.S.C. § 661(j): it binds the parties in that case but is not binding precedent in other cases.
- Why finality matters: Every page here says which kind of decision you are reading, so you know whether it is precedent you can cite or a final order that only shows how one judge ruled on one set of facts.
- Where they come from: Every page links the official OSHRC public release, and the full text on the page is that release. The plain-English summaries are written by Ezel.