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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AMR Services Company
Airport ground-services settlement approved
AMR Services provided aircraft ground support at Atlanta's airport, where a wingwalker wearing dark clothing was struck and killed by an AMR fuel truck during nighttime operations. OSHA cited AMR for not providing reflective clothing. The judge vacated the citation, finding that the FAA's exercise…
Trinity Industries, Inc.
Forklift-training item vacated for insufficient proof
Trinity used five forklifts at its San Antonio steel-fabrication plant, operated by employees with 15 to 30 years of experience. OSHA alleged that Trinity had not devised adequate methods to train those operators. The record showed that management monitored operator proficiency and that a…
Consolidated Rail Corporation
Interlocutory review granted on FRA preemption
OSHA cited Conrail after inspecting employees performing maintenance and repair work on a railroad bridge in Ohio. Conrail moved to dismiss, arguing that the Federal Railroad Administration had exercised authority over railroad-bridge safety and therefore preempted OSHA. The judge denied that…
Vergona Crane Co., Inc.
Crane lessor liable for broken boom stop
Vergona Crane supplied a crane, operator, and oiler to a construction contractor under a bare-rental arrangement. The Commission treated Vergona and its closely related affiliate as a single entity and found that Vergona remained the workers' employer because it controlled how the crane was…
John Quinlan, t/a Quinlan Enterprises
Permanent-floor guardrail violation affirmed
Quinlan was the steel-erection subcontractor on a two-story building where employees worked near the edge of a permanent concrete second floor about 20 feet above the ground. A single wire rope ran around the perimeter at about 42 inches, but there was no midrail. Quinlan argued that the…
Metric Constructors, Inc.
Hoist item reclassified and rebar item withdrawn
Metric Constructors used a material hoist while building a six-floor hospital addition in Clearwater, Florida. The judge affirmed items involving long material protruding from the hoist, an unprotected ground-level hoist entrance, unenclosed unused sides of the hoist tower, and exposed reinforcing…
Georgetown Ironworks, Inc.
Citation against wrong employer withdrawn
A judge dismissed Georgetown Ironworks' notice of contest after the company failed to answer a show-cause order, which had the effect of affirming the citation and proposed penalties. The Secretary later received information showing that Georgetown Ironworks had no employees and no role at the…
Economy Sod, Inc.
Overlooked response restores notice of contest
A judge dismissed Economy Sod's notice of contest after concluding that the company had not answered an order to show cause. Economy Sod petitioned for review and maintained that it had responded on time. The Commission's record confirmed that a timely response had been received but overlooked…
Well Solutions, Inc.
Open-fields evidence reinstates rig-safety violations
An OSHA inspector first visited Well Solutions' oil-well rig without a warrant and observed unguarded platforms and employees without hard hats from an accessible road and field. The judge suppressed those observations and vacated the citations. The Commission held that the open-fields doctrine…
Alaska Trawl Fisheries, Inc.
OSHA jurisdiction over factory vessels affirmed
Alaska Trawl Fisheries and Golden Age Fisheries operated vessels that caught and processed fish near Dutch Harbor, Alaska. OSHA cited machine guarding, passageway, recordkeeping, welding-gas storage, and hazard-communication conditions aboard the vessels. The companies stipulated to the violations…
Baytown Construction Company, Inc.
Crane power-line clearance violation affirmed
Baytown employees used a truck crane to unload pipe near a 7,620-volt overhead power line. The crane cable and suspended pipe became energized, and an employee handling the pipe was electrocuted. Testimony about loud electrical discharges, burn damage to the cable, the crane's contact with the line…
Ed Taylor Construction Co.
Confined-space inspection-program violation affirmed
Taylor Construction employees entered a 24-foot-deep access shaft to close a valve for an artificial lake at an Atlanta office project. Three supervisory employees died after being overcome by an oxygen-deficient atmosphere during the initial entry and rescue attempts. Two related citation items…
A. E. Staley Mfg. Co.
Settlement affirmed over union participation objection
The Secretary and A. E. Staley Manufacturing reached a settlement that an administrative law judge approved. The authorized employee representative, Allied Industrial Workers Local 837, sought review and argued that it had been denied meaningful participation. The record showed that the union…
Loomis Cabinet Company
Cabinet workers held to be employees
Loomis Cabinet Company manufactured wooden cabinets and was cited after a follow-up inspection for repeat, other-than-serious, and failure-to-abate violations. Loomis stipulated to the violations but argued that its former employees had become partners in Eastview Cabinet Company, leaving Loomis…
Stone Portable Toilets
Dismissal conditionally affirmed pending proof of answer
An administrative law judge dismissed Stone Portable Toilets' notice of contest because the company had not filed an answer to the complaint or responded to an order to show cause. Owner Gary Stone told the Commission that he had filed the required answer, although the Commission's file contained…
Broshear Contractors, Inc.
Trench expert evidence admitted on remand
Broshear Contractors was cited for failing to adequately slope or support a trench under 29 C.F.R. § 1926.652. At the hearing, the administrative law judge excluded parts of a geotechnical expert's testimony about a later re-excavation of the trench and excluded the expert's written report. The…
Concrete Construction Company
Training affirmed and backfill violation reduced
Concrete Construction Company was cited after OSHA inspected two excavations beside a public road during a water-line project. The Commission rejected the company's inspection objections because the work was visible from a public area, the foreman consented to the inspection, and the company…
Sal Masonry Contractors, Inc.
Ladder item vacated and guardrail violation made willful
Sal Masonry Contractors was cited for ladder and scaffold violations during masonry work on an academic building at Cornell University. The Commission vacated the scaffold-access item because the testimony conflicted over whether a ladder was present and whether supervisors knew employees were…
Trinity Industries, Inc.
Noise and press items affirmed with other items vacated
Trinity Industries manufactured liquid propane gas cylinders at a Jacksonville, Florida facility and contested consolidated health and safety citations. The Commission declined to dismiss the cases over the Secretary's refusal to comply with discovery orders because Trinity had litigated the…
Industrial Glass
Heat-stress general-duty citation vacated
Industrial Glass manufactured bottles in a forming department where employees worked near molten glass and hot bottles. OSHA cited the company under the general duty clause for exposing employees to excessive heat stress. The Commission found that the Secretary's expert models did not accurately…
Erie Coke Corporation
Employer had to pay for gloves but violation was de minimis
Erie Coke made flame-resistant gloves available to coke-oven employees but required them to buy the gloves from the company at cost. The Commission deferred to the Secretary's reasonable interpretation that the coke-oven emissions standard required the employer to provide and pay for the gloves. It…
Imageries
Default order upheld after repeated failures to respond
OSHA cited Imageries after an employee on a two-point suspension scaffold was not wearing a safety belt attached to a lifeline and after finding that the company lacked a written hazard communication program. The employee fell to his death, and the company president stated that the employee was his…
LaRosa & Lamar Janitorial Services
Default dismissal set aside over defective service
An OSHRC judge dismissed LaRosa & Lamar Janitorial Services' notice of contest after the company did not answer the Secretary's complaint or respond to a show-cause order. The Commission set the dismissal aside because the judge sent the show-cause order by certified mail without requesting a…
Holman Steel Company
Default order set aside for settlement review
An OSHRC judge dismissed Holman Steel Company's notice of contest, affirmed a citation, and assessed a $1,500 penalty after the company did not respond to an order. The Secretary asked the Commission to review the default because the parties had executed a settlement agreement. Her petition stated…
Quinn Machine & Tool, Inc.
Settlement approved after citations were vacated
An OSHRC judge vacated citations against Quinn Machine & Tool after the Secretary did not timely file either a complaint or a fully executed settlement agreement. The Secretary sought review, and the parties submitted the completed agreement they said had already been negotiated. The agreement…
Consolidated Edison Company of New York Inc.
Asbestos monitoring case settled for $1,600
Consolidated Edison employees removed asbestos-containing gasket material at the company's Indian Point station without initial exposure monitoring. An OSHRC judge found a repeated violation of the asbestos monitoring standard and assessed $1,000. The judge also affirmed without a penalty an…
Cornet Frosted Foods & Ice Cream Corporation
Settlement remanded to add omitted item
Cornet Frosted Foods & Ice Cream Corporation and the Secretary settled citations issued in October 1991. Their written agreement reduced the listed penalties from $7,000 to $3,000, required payment of that amount, and recorded the company's representation that the cited conditions had been abated…
Tampa Shipyards, Inc.
Willful crane overload affirmed after fatal collapse
Tampa Shipyards used a tower crane to lift and swing a ship-deck section that workers believed weighed 33 tons while the boom was set for a 21-ton capacity. The crane collapsed during the lift and killed two employees. The Commission affirmed a willful general duty clause violation because…
Hackney, Inc.
Noise program items vacated but records violation affirmed
Hackney operated a pipe manufacturing plant where OSHA alleged willful violations of several occupational noise requirements. The Commission vacated the audiometric-testing and hearing-protector supervision items because OSHA did not reliably prove employee exposure at or above the required…
Price Chopper Supermarkets, A Golub Corporation Company
Injury log required at each store
Price Chopper kept separate OSHA injury and illness logs for its 76 supermarkets at a central office. Employees could request a store's log by telephone and receive it at home by mail or at the store by truck delivery within about 48 hours. The Commission held that this procedure did not satisfy…
Right-Gard Corporation
Pro se employer given hearing on default relief
An OSHRC judge dismissed Right-Gard Corporation's notice of contest and assessed $13,470 after the company did not answer the Secretary's complaint or retrieve and respond to a certified show-cause order. The Commission found that the required notice procedures had been followed and that postal…
Trinity Industries Inc.
Machine and electrical case settled for $800
OSHA inspected two Trinity Industries railcar fabrication plants in Dallas and cited numerous machine guarding, crane, electrical, tool, fire extinguisher, sling, and hazard communication conditions. An OSHRC judge affirmed several serious and other-than-serious items and vacated others. During…
American Cyanamid Company
Label ruling narrowed but safety-data-sheet item affirmed
American Cyanamid manufactured resins and molding compounds for shipment to plastics-industry customers. OSHA alleged that several container labels lacked appropriate target-organ warnings and that material safety data sheets omitted short-term exposure limits. The Commission rejected OSHA's…
Tire Reclamation Services, Inc.
Parties allowed to revisit settlement after fire
Tire Reclamation Services agreed to settle OSHA citations for a total penalty of $450. After an OSHRC judge approved the agreement, the company's vice president reported that a fire had closed the business and left it without funds to pay. The Commission held that this changed circumstance did not…
Trinity Industries, Inc.
Electrical penalty cut but four serious violations upheld
Trinity Industries manufactured chemical-processing tanks at its Sharonville, Ohio plant. The Commission upheld serious violations for failing to protect an employee walking on top of a tank from a nine-foot fall, leaving a compressed-gas cylinder without a valve cap, and allowing welding arcs to…
American Sterilizer Co.
Employees may designate monitoring observers
American Sterilizer monitored employees for noise and lead exposure at its Erie, Pennsylvania plant. It allowed monitored and other affected employees to observe the work and ask questions, but its policy barred union representatives acting in their official capacity from observing despite a…
All Phase Electric & Maintenance, Inc.
Construction citations settled for $865
All Phase Electric & Maintenance performed electrical work at a building construction site where OSHA cited hazard communication, gasoline-container, electrical guarding, and stair-railing conditions. The company president admitted the hazard communication deficiencies and stated that he had been…
Bay State Refining Company
Lead and copper citations affirmed
Bay State manufactured brass and bronze ingots from scrap metal at its Chicopee, Massachusetts foundry. OSHA found employees overexposed to copper dust and lead and cited deficiencies in engineering controls, respirator selection and fit testing, contaminated-clothing practices, medical…
F.M.C. Gold Company, Inc.
OSHA citations withdrawn because MSHA had jurisdiction
F.M.C. Gold used an independent drilling contractor to extract core samples at a remote gold exploration site in Idaho. A contractor's fuel truck rolled downhill and pinned an F.M.C. employee against the drill rig, causing fatal injuries. OSHA cited F.M.C. for failing to chock or turn vehicle…
Wyman-Gordon Company
Access ordered to medical and workplace health records
The widows of two former Wyman-Gordon aircraft-parts employees authorized a law firm to request exposure records, medical records, and workplace health analyses concerning their late husbands. The Commission held that legal representatives of deceased employees could exercise record-access rights…
ARA Living Centers of Texas, Inc.
Chemical training required beyond labels and safety data sheets
ARA Living Centers operated Oak Manor Nursing Home, where employees used cleaning products containing phosphoric acid and ethyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride. The nursing home had product labels and material safety data sheets, but the OSHA inspector testified without contradiction that…
Jefferson Smurfit Corporation
Feeder-belt item vacated for lack of employee exposure
Jefferson Smurfit manufactured cardboard boxes using a straight-line gluer with exposed nip points on a product-feeding belt and on separate power-transmission belts. The Commission vacated the item concerning the feeder belt because OSHA did not prove that employees were exposed to a…
Carabetta Enterprises, Inc.
Willful steel-erection fall violation affirmed
Three Carabetta employees erected structural steel about 28 to 30 feet above the nearest floor without a temporary floor, safety net, or other fall protection. Carabetta argued that its three-story construction modules made an intermediate floor impracticable and that the standard unfairly treated…
Mosser Construction Company
Crane gear violation affirmed after storage-area exposure
A Mosser crane operator regularly entered a confined crane compartment containing moving gears, fuel gauges, tools, oils, and other stored materials. After completing lubrication work and restarting the gears, a rag and then his hand became entangled, severing his hand. The Commission held that the…
R & R Builders, Inc.
Safety-belt violation remains willful
R & R Builders was a drywall subcontractor cited for safety-program, training, safety-belt, guardrail, and ground-fault protection violations at a condominium project. The Commission affirmed the safety-program, training, safety-belt, and guardrail items, but reduced three of them from willful to a…
Thomas Lindstrom Company
Offsite safety data sheets were not readily accessible
Thomas Lindstrom Company was a structural steel erector whose foreman used oxygen and acetylene at a construction site. When OSHA requested the material safety data sheets for those chemicals, the foreman could not produce them because the sheets were kept at the company's central office, between…
Peavey Grain Company
Grain facility needed an effective alarm
Peavey Grain operated a grain-handling facility where a temporary employee suffocated after becoming buried in grain inside a storage building. OSHA cited Peavey's emergency action plan because it lacked provisions for rescue and medical duties and did not provide an employee alarm system. The…
CF & I Steel Corporation
Willfulness and penalty remanded
CF & I Steel was found to have violated the coke-oven-emissions respiratory protection standard after appellate courts upheld the Secretary of Labor's interpretation of the rule. The Tenth Circuit returned the case to the Commission because the remaining questions were whether the violation was…
Dover Elevator Company
Unsecured oxygen cylinder did not meet the carrying exception
Dover Elevator left an oxygen cylinder unsecured for 15 to 30 minutes near an elevator shaft while employees tried to repair a hoist. The Commission rejected OSHA's view that a cylinder must be secured whenever it is not physically moving, recognizing that brief, necessary pauses during carrying…
Bally's Park Place Hotel & Casino
Work-product protection covered consultant test records
Bally's commissioned an outside consultant to test iodine emissions from a casino glass-washing machine after OSHA raised employee exposure concerns. The company's general counsel requested the testing in anticipation of litigation, and Bally's refused to give the resulting records to OSHA or an…
Mt. Adams Furniture Co.
Tribal enterprise remained subject to OSHA
Mt. Adams Furniture was an enterprise of the Yakima Indian tribe located on the Yakima reservation. An administrative law judge dismissed OSHA's citations because he concluded that applying the Occupational Safety and Health Act would interfere with treaty rights allowing the tribe to exclude…
Ceco Corporation
General-duty citation withdrawn in settlement
Ceco Corporation was a concrete formwork contractor cited after OSHA inspected a parking-garage construction project. The item before the Commission alleged a serious general-duty-clause violation because employees rode forklift tines to reach an 11-foot scaffold. The parties entered a full…
PPG Industries, Inc.
Omitted settlement item affirmed at $200
PPG Industries and the Secretary previously settled numerous serious, willful, and other-than-serious citation items. After the settlement became final, the parties discovered that serious citation item 13 had been omitted from the written agreement. They jointly stated that the item was supposed…
Super Excavators, Inc.
Offsite hazard documents led to a de minimis notice and a $60 violation
Super Excavators had an effective written hazard-communication program, but kept the written program and material safety data sheets at its main office rather than at a sewer-construction worksite 22 miles away. The Commission converted the written-program item to a de minimis notice because the…
Consolidated Freightways Corp.
Corrosive-dye PPE violation was serious
Consolidated Freightways employees handled and cleaned up a leaking drum of corrosive powdered dye without suitable personal protective equipment. Supervisors knew about the spill but left untrained workers to decide what protection to use, and the company's safety guides were not adequately…
Allen's Casing Crews, Inc.
Lanyard item remanded for review of the correct evidence
OSHA inspected Allen's Casing Crews after an employee fell from an oil-drilling rig and died. One citation item concerned a lanyard used later by a replacement crew member whose snap-hook spring was missing, while a separate item concerned the longer lanyard used by the employee who fell. The judge…
All Phase Electric & Maintenance, Inc.
Informal-conference request did not contest citations
OSHA cited All Phase Electric for two serious electrical violations and one other-than-serious posting violation, with $240 in proposed penalties. The company received the citations on December 18, 1989, but did not submit a written notice of contest within the 15-working-day period ending January…
Phillips 66 Company
Union abatement objections required settlement remand
After an explosion and fire at a Phillips 66 petrochemical facility, OSHA alleged 566 willful general-duty-clause violations and proposed more than $5.6 million in penalties. A proposed settlement removed the willful classification, set a $4 million payment, and extended abatement schedules across…
Miami Industries, Inc.
OSHA approval estopped stricter machine-guarding enforcement
Miami Industries used hinged barrier guards around tube-mill rollers after an OSHA compliance officer approved the design following an earlier citation. OSHA also used Miami's blueprints as a model for other employers and conducted later inspections for almost ten years without citing the guards…
Asbestos Abatement Consultation and Engineering
Timely EAJA application could be amended
Asbestos Abatement Consultation and Engineering prevailed after the Secretary withdrew the remaining asbestos citation items and then sought $4,207.34 in attorney fees and costs under the Equal Access to Justice Act. The Commission held that the 30-day application period began when its underlying…
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.