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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Dierzen-Kewanee Heavy Industries, LTD
Unabated hazards resulted in $133,100 in penalties
Dierzen-Kewanee manufactured dump-truck bodies at a former boiler factory in Illinois. After settling earlier OSHA citations, the company paid only the first penalty installment, did not provide requested abatement information, and left many cited conditions uncorrected for a follow-up inspection…
Gunite Corporation
Willful silica and respirator violations affirmed
Gunite operated a truck-parts foundry where employees were exposed to respirable silica from large quantities of sand used in the casting process. The Commission vacated four air-contaminant items because respirators provided adequate protection for four cited employees and the Secretary did not…
Sturm Ruger & Co., Pine Tree Castings Division
Targeted inspection and settlements affirmed
OSHA used injury and illness data from Pine Tree Castings to select the handgun-casting facility for a programmed inspection under a nationwide targeting plan. Sturm Ruger challenged the data survey, inspection warrant, discovery rulings, evidence, and subpoenas. The Commission held that OSHA had…
Coastal Paving, Inc.
Twenty-three items affirmed after contest withdrawal
OSHA issued Coastal Paving three citations containing 23 serious, willful, and other-than-serious items against its asphalt manufacturing operation. Before the hearing, Coastal withdrew its contest and stated that it was no longer in business, had no employees, and could not refute the Secretary's…
Belden Brick Co.
OSHA silica exposure calculation upheld
OSHA sampled six employees at Belden Brick's Ohio manufacturing facility and found exposure to respirable dust containing crystalline silica above the permissible limits. Belden argued that each calculated silica limit should be compared only with the pure silica portion of the dust sample, rather…
Ohio Cast Products, Inc.
Silica dust calculation and $8,000 penalty affirmed
Ohio Cast Products sampled an employee performing work with silica-containing sand and disputed OSHA's method for deciding whether his exposure exceeded the permissible limit. The company argued that the calculated limit should be compared only with the pure silica portion of the sample. The…
G & C Foundry Company
Commission affirms silica engineering-control and formaldehyde-sampling citations against an iron foundry
G & C Foundry makes iron castings at a plant in Sandusky, Ohio, using induction furnaces that must be relined with silica every two weeks. OSHA measured workers relining the furnaces at up to 24 times the permissible silica dust limit and cited the company for failing to use feasible administrative…
Niemand Industries, Inc.
Talc items vacated after court rejected sampling method
OSHA cited Niemand for excessive talc exposure, unapproved dust masks, and failure to use feasible engineering or administrative controls. The Commission initially affirmed those items based on gravimetric sampling. The Eleventh Circuit held that OSHA could not prove a Table Z-3 violation with a…
EBAA Iron, Inc.
Silica overexposure and control citations vacated
EBAA Iron operated a foundry in Cordele, Georgia, where OSHA sampled the breathing zone of an inner-diameter grinder operator and calculated exposure above the limit for respirable crystalline silica. EBAA showed that the grinding wheel contained 40 percent zirconium oxide and that OSHA's own…
Niemand Industries, Inc.
Talc citations and $2,800 penalty vacated after court remand
OSHA cited Niemand Industries for employee talc exposure, use of unapproved dust masks, and failure to use feasible controls. The Eleventh Circuit reversed the Commission's earlier finding because OSHA had measured talc exposure with a technique not provided in Table Z-3. The Commission concluded…
Central Brass Manufacturing Co.
EAJA award adjusted to $13,520
Central Brass sought attorney fees and expenses under the Equal Access to Justice Act after prevailing on several noise, lead, and silica citation items. An ALJ awarded $13,250, and the Secretary challenged the method used to allocate fees and expenses. The Commission held that it reviews its…
Keco Industries, Inc.
Record-access and blasting-respirator violations affirmed
Keco Industries manufactured military and aerospace equipment and performed abrasive blasting in an enclosed facility at its Ohio plant. The Commission affirmed a willful record-access violation because Keco refused repeated requests for prior injury and illness logs even after OSHA presented an…
Bunge Corporation
Grain-dust citations vacated
OSHA cited three Bunge grain-handling facilities under the mineral-dust provisions of 29 C.F.R. § 1910.1000. The Commission held that Table Z-3 applies only to mineral dusts and did not cover organic soybean or grain dust under its inert-or-nuisance-dust listing. It also rejected the alternative…
Seaboard Foundry, Inc.
Silica and respirator violations affirmed, control issue remanded
OSHA measurements showed five foundry employees exposed to silica dust at three to 15 times the permissible limit while ventilation and wheelabrator controls were not working properly. The Commission held that one day of valid measurements established overexposure and that Seaboard did not rebut…
Pennsylvania Electric Company
Coal-dust case remanded after late contest transmittal
OSHA issued Pennsylvania Electric Company a separate coal-dust citation after earlier safety citations, but the area office failed to transmit the company's notice of contest to the Commission for almost seven months. The judge treated the coal-dust citation as an invalid amendment of the earlier…
Hermitage Concrete Pipe Co.
Silica overexposure treated as serious
Hermitage Concrete Pipe employees were exposed to respirable silica dust concentrations as high as seven times the permissible limit while handling sand and cement and finishing conduit. After a federal court rejected the Commission's earlier seriousness test and remanded the case, the Commission…
Babcock & Wilcox Co.
Silica settlement approved subject to service on the union
OSHA cited excess respirable silica exposure for two foundry shakeout employees. The settlement reclassified the violations as other than serious, eliminated the $480 penalty, extended abatement to July 1, 1979, and required engineering controls, monitoring, reports, and respiratory protection. A…
General Motors Corporation, Central Foundry Division
Federal failure-to-correct authority upheld in Michigan
Federal OSHA cited General Motors for excessive respirable dust in 1974 and set a final abatement date in 1976. After Michigan's state plan became operational, federal OSHA reinspected the plant and issued a failure-to-correct notification. General Motors argued that the state plan agreement had…
Gardinier, Inc. & International Chemical Workers
Settlement approved after union participation
OSHA issued Gardinier two citations containing multiple serious and nonserious items and proposed $900 in total penalties. Gardinier contested most of the items, and the company and Secretary later reached a settlement. International Chemical Workers Union Local 439 had requested participation and…
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.