Federal Agency Decisions
Workplace-safety cases from the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC), mine-safety cases from the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (FMSHRC), and environmental appeals from the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board, each with a plain-English summary, the standards it cites, and whether it counts as precedent. More agencies are coming.
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Belger Cartage Service, Inc.
Gas-cylinder violation classified as repeated
Belger Cartage stored oxygen, acetylene, and propane cylinders together beside a tool shed without the required separation or fire-resistant barrier. Employees regularly entered the shed, smoking occurred nearby, and combustible paper waste was present. The Commission reversed the judge's de…
Adrian Construction Company
An employer that abated a trench citation with a trench box and then parked the box 100 feet away cannot claim a good faith belief that it complied, so the violation is willful
Adrian was cited twice under the same excavation standard at the same job. What it did between the two citations is what made the second one willful. The first citation. Adrian was installing a sewer line and two prefabricated manholes at a water pollution plant construction site in Newport News…
Auto Bolt & Nut Co.
Noise-abatement extension conditioned on employee notice
Auto Bolt requested six additional months to complete and evaluate abatement of an occupational-noise violation. The Secretary withdrew his objection, and the judge extended the deadline to February 8, 1979. The record did not show that affected employees had received the required posted notice of…
General Motors Corporation, Delco Remy Division
Modified settlement approved
General Motors asked the Commission to adopt an Administrative Law Judge's proposed order approving a modified settlement agreement. The Commission granted the request. The short official release does not identify the cited standards, settlement terms, citation disposition, or penalty.
Interpace Corporation
Incorrect settlement order vacated
OSHA cited Interpace under two scaffold provisions, and the company contested only item 1A. At the hearing, the Secretary stated that the agreement was a withdrawal of item 1A and its proposed penalty. The judge's written order instead said that Interpace had withdrawn its contest. After the judge…
Ralston Purina Company
Federal-only noise inspection limit vacated
OSHA alleged excessive noise in Ralston Purina's extruding room and sought a plant inspection by an outside acoustical engineering expert. The judge found that the plant contained trade secrets and limited discovery to federal experts. Applying Owens-Illinois, the Commission vacated that…
American Can Company
Trade-secret discovery protections remanded
The Secretary sought entry into an American Can plant for discovery, and the company argued that only federal employees should be allowed because an outside expert could learn trade secrets or proprietary information. The judge allowed nonfederal personnel to enter under a protective order…
Metal Container Corporation
Federal-only discovery limit vacated
OSHA alleged excessive noise in four areas of Metal Container's plant and sought a discovery inspection to evaluate engineering controls. The company asserted that innovative machines and processes were trade secrets, and the judge limited the inspection team to federal employees. Applying…
M. J. Lee Construction Company
Impossibility and greater hazard both fail at the same element, because an employer that cannot comply still owes whatever partial protection was available to it
Lee was building a bridge abutment for the Oklahoma State Highway Department and dug a very large excavation for it: 120 feet long, 37 feet deep on the north side, 30 on the south, 28 feet wide at the bottom and 50 at the top. Employees worked at the bottom preparing to pour the footing. The walls…
Browar Wood Products Co., Inc.
Dismissed penalty contest reinstated
Browar Wood Products contested only the $480 in proposed penalties from two OSHA citations, but the judge dismissed its contest because the company did not file proof that it had posted the contest notice for employees. Browar said it had posted the notice and that the missing proof resulted from…
Tonolli Corporation
Second abatement extension sent to hearing
Tonolli Corporation sought a second one-year extension of an abatement deadline, moving the requested date to October 25, 1979. The judge granted the request after the Secretary missed an extended response deadline by several days. The Secretary's late opposition presented reasons the Commission…
The Harvester Company
Once the Commission has reinstated a notice of contest under Rule 60(b), the judge on remand cannot dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction to reinstate it
A small popcorn popper manufacturer in Pratt, Kansas lost its case by not answering the mail, got it back, and then lost it again when the judge on remand decided the Commission had never had the power to give it back. The Commission reversed that and sent the case down a second time. How it got…
Kama Corp.
Noise-inspection trade-secret dispute remanded
OSHA alleged excessive noise at Kama's plastic manufacturing plant and sought a discovery inspection by government personnel and a private acoustical consultant. Kama acknowledged no trade secrets in the specific machinery being tested but said a walk through the plant would expose other…
Hurlock Roofing Company
A greater hazard defense dies on the freestanding scaffold nobody explained, because an expert opinion with no reason behind it earns no deference
Five of Hurlock's roofers were shingling townhouses under construction in Dover, Delaware. The roofs sloped 5 inches in 12 and stood 19 feet at the eaves, with no parapets. Nobody wore a safety belt, no catch platform was installed, and there was no other fall protection. Judge William E. Brennan…
Potlatch Corporation
A violation is repeated if a final order already exists against the same employer for a substantially similar one, and citing the same standard twice makes that case prima facie
This is the decision where the Commission stopped improvising on what "repeated" means and set out a test. The facts are small. The holding is not. The facts. A compliance officer inspected Potlatch's sawmill on November 4, 1975. Citation three alleged a repeated failure to comply with the…
Bethlehem Steel Corporation
A party that already won below cannot use review to buy a better reason, and shipbuilding congestion that lasts for weeks is not temporary disarray
A compliance officer inspected Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point shipyard in Maryland over three days in May 1975 and cited two things aboard Hull 4643: an uncertificated derrick or crane under the shipbuilding hoisting standard, and an excessive accumulation of materials in seven work areas under…
Trans World Airlines, Inc.
Aircraft-door citation remained vacated
OSHA cited Trans World Airlines for unguarded aircraft doorways that exposed maintenance employees to falls of up to 15 feet. The judge vacated the citation after concluding that Federal Aviation Administration regulation displaced OSHA jurisdiction over the working condition. The Commission…
Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.
A trained employee and a belt left in the truck is not unpreventable misconduct when no work rule covered the job the foreman knew was coming
Southwestern Bell was installing telephone cable in a building under construction in Oklahoma City. The last piece of cable on the whole job ran through a junction box mounted above a run of utility pipes. A compliance officer found the lineman, Paciorek, kneeling on those pipes about 16 feet above…
Williams Enterprises, Inc.
A crane swing radius is barricaded by a barricade and not by an oiler, and that nobody walked into it is not evidence that nobody could
A judge vacated three citation items against Williams Enterprises for want of employee exposure. The Commission reversed him on all three. Chairman Cleary wrote; Commissioner Barnako dissented and would have affirmed the judge throughout. The case is worth reading for the access question, which the…
Reynolds Metal Company
Settlement conditionally affirmed for employee objections
Reynolds and the Secretary settled serious general duty clause and emergency-eyewash citation items by reducing penalties, extending abatement dates, and withdrawing the company's contest. Two unions had elected party status but were not properly served with the proposed agreement or given a clear…
Matter of Sunoco Energy Development Company
Labor certification was limited to stated job location
The Regional Commissioner reviewed a petition seeking sixth-preference classification for a Welsh mining engineer based on a labor certification for work at the White River Shale Project in Vernal, Utah. The beneficiary was instead employed at the petitioner's home office in Dallas, Texas. The…
Matter of Knudsen
Changed job duties supported a new immigrant petition
A company that processed sheepskins petitioned to classify a worker for a permanent Master Tanner-Dyer position after previously bringing him to the United States as an H-2 temporary worker. The Regional Commissioner found that the permanent position had different duties from the earlier temporary…
Matter of Lopez-Monzon
Family-reunification purpose controlled waiver discretion
The Commissioner reviewed a waiver application from an unmarried Guatemalan woman who had a United States citizen child. The child lived in Guatemala with the child's father, and the record did not show that the applicant had legal custody or intended to bring the child to the United States. The…
Stahr and Gregory Roofing Co., Inc.
Ladder and floor-guarding violations affirmed
Stahr and Gregory employees repeatedly used two ladders to reach roofing work, passing an unguarded second-floor edge and an inadequately guarded floor opening. The company did not create or control the conditions, and the general contractor was responsible for guardrails, but Stahr and Gregory…
Bristol-Myers Company
Post-citation noise inspection allowed
OSHA cited Bristol-Myers under the occupational noise standard and later sought a plant inspection by an acoustical expert to evaluate feasible controls. The judge denied discovery because he believed the Secretary should have fully developed that evidence before issuing the citation. The…
Matter of Lee
Immigration violations alone did not bar permission to reapply
The Commissioner reviewed a Chinese applicant's request for permission to reapply for admission after deportation. The applicant had repeatedly violated restrictions on foreign crewmen, deserted a vessel, and later surrendered to immigration authorities and departed voluntarily. The Commissioner…
Owens-Illinois, Inc.
The Secretary may send a non-federal expert into a plant over a trade secret objection, under a four-part protective order the employer itself can enforce
This is an interlocutory discovery ruling, and it overrules a line of Commission precedent. The question was whether the Secretary may bring an expert who is not a federal employee into an employer's plant for discovery, when the employer says trade secrets might be revealed. The Commission held…
Boonville Division of Ethan Allen, Inc.
Saw-guarding penalty reduced to $300
Ethan Allen used a combination woodworking machine with two continuously rotating saw blades whose lower central sections were unguarded. The Commission rejected arguments that nearby clamps, the operator's normal hand movements, or the raised blade position provided adequate protection. It held…
Continental Grain Company
Supplemental settlement approved
Continental Grain and the Secretary filed a settlement that amended the citation and proposed penalty and required compliance with the Act. The judge approved that agreement before the parties filed a supplement withdrawing Continental Grain's contest and certifying proper service. The Commission…
Walling Crate Company
Settlements remanded to clarify abatement dates
Walling Crate faced two consolidated cases covering numerous serious, repeated, and nonserious violations, including repeated occupational-noise and failure-to-abate allegations. The parties agreed to reduce penalties, withdraw Walling's contests, and state that the conditions would be abated and…
Material Fabrication Corporation
Mixed ALJ decision affirmed without review
The judge found Material Fabrication in violation of several OSHA standards and rejected other alleged violations. Commission review was directed only on whether the judge erred in finding no violation of the scaffold standard at 29 C.F.R. § 1910.28(a)(1). Neither party sought review or submitted a…
Burkart-Randall Company
Ambiguous machine-guarding settlement remanded
Burkart-Randall and the Secretary settled numerous citation items for $9,000, with detailed safeguards and abatement terms for mechanical power presses. After approval, the parties jointly reported that four citation No. 2 items had mistakenly been classified as serious rather than repeated. The…
Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation
Crane-brake settlement rejected
OSHA cited Kaiser because ten cranes handling molten metal had one holding brake rather than the two required by the standard. The Secretary and Kaiser settled by treating the condition as de minimis, eliminating the penalty and abatement requirement, and withdrawing the company's contest. The…
Bethlehem Steel Corporation (Buffalo Tank Div.)
ALJ decision affirmed without review
The Commission directed review of the Bethlehem Steel case on its own initiative. Neither party petitioned for review, objected to the Administrative Law Judge's decision, or otherwise expressed dissatisfaction. The Commission found no compelling public interest requiring it to decide the case's…
Western Waterproofing Co., Inc.
Losing the midrail finding on appeal barely lowers gravity, because the fall hazard came from untied safety belts rather than from railings
This is a penalty reassessment on remand from the Eighth Circuit, and it is a short document about how much a partial appellate loss is actually worth. How the case got here. The Commission had found that Western Waterproofing willfully failed to comply with three scaffolding standards, 29…
Western Waterproofing Co., Inc.
Willful scaffold penalty set at $8,000 after court remand
Western Waterproofing employees worked on noncomplying suspension scaffolds 17 to 47 feet above the ground. An appeals court upheld willful violations involving missing safety-belt lifelines, failure to lash the scaffolds to the building, and missing toeboards, but rejected the Commission’s earlier…
Champion Construction Engineering Co.
ALJ decision conditionally affirmed
The judge affirmed several OSHA violations, and Champion Construction initially sought Commission review. The company later reported that it would assign its assets for creditors, cease operating, and withdraw its request to file a brief. The Commission found that letter ambiguous as to whether…
Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.
Rungs on 12-inch centers means the top rung too, and once the parties consent the judge has no discretion to refuse the amendment
Southwestern Bell employees were splicing cable inside a manhole. The metal ladder attached to the neck of the manhole started low: the first rung sat about 36 inches below ground level and 4 feet 1 inch below the top of the collar. Every rung below the top one was 12 inches from the next. The…
Deering Milliken, Inc.
The cotton dust limit is a total dust limit, and a mill that cannot separate cotton from dirt in the sample has no defense in that fact
OSHA inspected Deering Milliken's Unity Plant in La Grange, Georgia, and found cotton dust above the 1 mg/m3 limit in the opening rooms and the waste house. The company was charged with failing to implement feasible engineering controls under 29 C.F.R. § 1910.1000(e), and with failing to provide…
Western Electric Co., Inc.
A settlement approved in two sentences draws a dissent arguing that abatement must be proved on the record, not asserted in the agreement
This is a two-sentence order. The Commission approved the parties' settlement agreement of July 12, 1978, citing Aspro, Inc., Spun Steel Division and Dawson Brothers Mechanical Contractors . Commissioner Cottine dissented at length, and the dissent is the substance of the document. Western Electric…
John & Roy Carlstrom d/b/a Carlstrom Brothers Construction
A judge may try a standard nobody pleaded when the objection runs to the legal theory rather than to the evidence
Carlstrom was a subcontractor on a building site in Fremont, Nebraska. It rigged a single-point suspension scaffold hung from two ten-foot I-beams welded and bolted into a twenty-foot outrigger laid on the roof. The counterweight at the back end was two five-gallon paint drums filled with concrete…
IMC Chemical Group, Inc.
Union allowed to oppose citation withdrawal
After IMC contested two citations, the Secretary moved to withdraw the first serious citation before filing a complaint because the alleged hazard had not occurred as charged. The employee union timely asked the Commission to keep the citation in place, but the judge ruled that the Secretary could…
CF&I Steel Corporation
An inspection conducted without presenting credentials gives the employer no remedy absent a Fourth Amendment violation or actual prejudice
This is the tail end of a case the employer had already won once and then lost on appeal. What remained was a single unanswered question, and the answer followed from what the court of appeals had already found. An explosion in one of CF&I's furnaces at its Pueblo, Colorado works killed…
CF&I Steel Corporation
Furnace-hazard citation and $300 penalty affirmed
OSHA cited CF&I Steel under the general duty clause for exposing its employees to flame, extreme heat, and molten metal during furnace-charging operations at its Pueblo, Colorado, facility. The inspection followed an explosion that killed two employees of an independent contractor working in the…
Brockway Glass Company, Inc.
Noise-abatement extension conditionally affirmed
Brockway Glass sought an extension to December 31, 1979 for final abatement of an occupational-noise violation, and the parties settled on that date. The judge approved the agreement before the employee representatives received copies. The Commission held that sending the executed agreement after…
Continental Can Company, U.S.A., a member of The Continental Group, Inc.
Noise cases dismissed under court order
Multiple Continental Can cases alleged excessive noise at company facilities across the country. Continental argued that an earlier Commission ruling barred the Secretary from relitigating the economic feasibility of noise controls at other plants, but the Commission had previously rejected that…
McLean-Behm Steel Erectors, Inc.
An employer that defends by naming a more specific standard impliedly consents to be tried under it
A welder and his helper were installing window framing on the fourth or fifth floor of a hotel going up in Atlanta. They worked from "monkey bars," a steel truss with top and bottom chords two and a half feet apart, joined by vertical and diagonal bracing every four feet six inches. The cement…
Otis Elevator Company
A rope sagging to within eight inches of the floor guards nothing, and exposure turns on access to the hazard rather than proof an employee stood in it
Otis was the elevator subcontractor on a job in Topeka, Kansas, adding two levels to an existing parking garage. On October 30, 1975 its employees were working at the bottom of a double elevator shaft, preparing to install a hydraulic cylinder. A compliance officer inspected and Otis received…
Matter of Carbajal
Repeated voluntary departures did not prove bad moral character
The Commissioner reviewed a Mexican applicant's request for permission to reapply for admission after deportation. The applicant had entered the United States unlawfully four times, but each time he came to the attention of immigration authorities he received voluntary departure, which required a…
Kroehler Manufacturing Co.
Guillotine-cutter penalty reduced to $250
Kroehler used a guillotine cardboard cutter whose two-hand control allowed the operator to release one lever and move a hand near the descending blade during the cutting cycle. The Commission held that no more specific machine-guarding standard applied to the furniture plant, so the general…
Christopher Coal Company
$6,500 penalty affirmed
Christopher Coal Company appealed an Administrative Law Judge decision assessing a $6,500 civil penalty for violating 30 C.F.R. § 75.329 at its Osage No. 3 Mine. The Commission reviewed the record and concluded that the company had not shown a reason to disturb the judge’s findings, legal…
General Motors Corporation
Noise-abatement date corrected to March 1979
General Motors requested an extension of the deadline for abating an excessive-noise violation, and the settlement set March 14, 1979 as the new date. The judge's approval order mistakenly used March 14, 1978, and the judge lacked jurisdiction to correct the filed order himself. The agreement had…
Grossman Steel & Aluminum Corp.
Multiple construction-site charges vacated
Grossman Steel was an iron subcontractor at a Veterans Administration hospital project and faced fire-protection, cylinder-storage, extinguisher, and falling-material allegations. The Commission vacated the general duty clause charge because Grossman's employees neither used nor had reason to use…
Safeway Stores, Inc.
Late contest remanded over missing citation
The judge dismissed Safeway's notice of contest as untimely, making two citations and their penalties final. Safeway told the Commission that it had received only one citation page and had never received the separate second citation. It also offered reasons for missing the contest deadline and…
Yelvington Welding Service
A failure to report a fatality continues until the Secretary learns of it, and it tolls the six-month limit on citing the hazard that caused the death
An employee died on January 9, 1975 while making welding repairs underneath a suspended trailer-mounted fertilizer hopper that was not secured or blocked. Yelvington did not report the death. The Secretary learned of it on October 10, 1975, when the State of Florida told him. He inspected about two…
MRS Printing, Incorporated
Easily bypassed cutter control violated guarding rule
MRS Printing operated a guillotine paper cutter with two controls, but an employee could activate one control with a knee and leave a hand free near the blade. The Commission held that the point-of-operation guard failed because the standard requires a device designed to prevent any body part from…
Matter of Handley
United States adoption did not qualify an in-country orphan
The Regional Commissioner reviewed a petition by a United States citizen seeking immediate-relative classification for a child from Peru. The child entered the United States, was paroled for humanitarian reasons, and was later adopted in Colorado. The Commissioner held that the orphan provision…
Williams Enterprises
Safety-net violation affirmed for unprotected ironworkers
Two Williams ironworkers connected steel about 49 feet above concrete without safety belts, nets, scaffolds, or temporary floors. Williams argued that installing nets was impossible because of the structure, existing scaffolds, anchorage distances, and net weight. The Commission found that the…
Bailey Construction Company
A defective tool that is merely available for use violates the grounding standard; the Secretary need not prove anyone used it or would have
A compliance officer inspected a small general contractor working inside the laundry building at a New York State correctional facility in Coxsackie, breaking out a hole in the concrete floor to set a scale frame. Two employees were on site, a foreman named Feeley and a laborer named Willingham. A…
Aspro, Inc., Spun Steel Division
Abatement settlement set aside for missing employee notice
Aspro requested an extension of an abatement deadline, and the judge approved a settlement granting the requested date. The petition had not been posted for affected employees, and the union elected party status shortly after approval and objected. The Secretary acknowledged that employee notice…
What these documents are
- The agencies: Workplace-safety cases from the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC), mine-safety cases from the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (FMSHRC), and environmental permit and penalty appeals from the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB). Each decision page names its agency.
- Commission and Board decisions: Rulings by the agency's highest review level (the Commission at OSHRC and FMSHRC, the Environmental Appeals Board at EPA). These are citable as precedent, though a decision may have been appealed to a U.S. Court of Appeals after issuance.
- ALJ decisions: Rulings by the agency's Administrative Law Judges after a hearing. When no Commissioner directs review, an ALJ decision becomes a final order that binds the parties in that case but is not binding precedent: under 29 U.S.C. § 661(j) at OSHRC, and after the 40-day window of 30 U.S.C. § 823(d)(1) at FMSHRC.
- 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 public release from the deciding agency, and the full text on the page is that release. The plain-English summaries are written by Ezel.