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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Joel Patterson Air Conditioning Recycling
Workplace violations resulted in $4,100 in penalties
Joel Patterson Air Conditioning Recycling paid workers daily to dismantle used air conditioners at its warehouse but labeled them subcontractors. Applying the economic-realities test, the judge found they were employees because the business controlled the workplace, pay, hours, equipment, hiring…
Pilgrim's Pride Corporation
Damaged passageway floor violated aisle-repair rule
Pilgrim's Pride operated a chicken-processing plant where employees pushed wheeled carts through a hallway to a freezer. The hallway floor had numerous shallow depressions where its asphalt-like covering had cracked and flaked away. Judge Ken S. Welsch found that the alternative floor-cleaning…
Dillard Texas Operating Limited Partnership, and its successors
Floor and emergency-preparedness items affirmed
OSHA cited a Dillard's store for damaged floors and walls, locked or poorly fitting exits, emergency-planning deficiencies, inadequate fire-extinguisher training, machine guarding, and electrical conditions. Judge James H. Barkley affirmed an other-than-serious passageway violation because…
Action Craft, Inc.
Penalties reduced for eight manufacturing violations
Action Craft manufactured small fishing boats with about 18 employees at a facility in Cape Coral, Florida. OSHA cited eight serious conditions involving storage-area load limits and railings, dispensing flammable liquids, a modified forklift, and guarding on a cylinder machine, bandsaw, and bench…
Hamilton Fixture
Commission upholds expanded inspection and assesses $2,450
Hamilton Fixture manufactured wooden store-display fixtures at a plant in Hamilton, Ohio, with about 350 employees. OSHA began with a union complaint about safety practices and expanded the inspection plant-wide after the compliance officer calculated a lost-workday injury rate about three times…
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…
Emerson Electric Company, Emerson Electric Motor Division
Molten aluminum and eye protection items affirmed in part
Emerson Electric used a monorail system to move pots of molten aluminum and also had employees hand-dip parts into an acidic resin. The Commission amended the molten-aluminum item from the general duty clause to the overhead-crane rule requiring operators to avoid carrying loads over people, then…
Gulf Oil Corporation
Walkway and respirator-training items vacated
OSHA cited Gulf Oil Corporation for an obstructed refinery walkway and for inadequate training of employees who used half-mask respirators. The Commission held that the cited aisle standard applied only where employees operated mechanical handling equipment, which the Secretary had not shown, and…
Cornell & Company, Inc.
Elevator-shaft and fire items affirmed
Cornell erected precast concrete walls at a Philadelphia hotel project. Four employees on the twentieth floor were about ten feet from partially uncovered elevator shafts, and the worksite lacked required fire extinguishers. The Commission found foreseeable employee access to those hazards, but not…
Aluminum Coil Anodizing Corp.
Multi-item citation upheld in part after inspection challenge failed
OSHA inspected Aluminum Coil Anodizing's Illinois plant after receiving a complaint from someone who was not an employee or employee representative. The Commission held that the complaint's source and purpose did not invalidate the inspection because OSHA also had broad general authority to inspect…
Mikel Company, Inc.
Machine-guarding items affirmed in part and penalties reduced
Mikel Company manufactured high-style furniture using saws, routers, a jointer, and a root shaper. The judge vacated the root-shaper item because the evidence showed a hold-down guard was installed, but affirmed jointer and router guarding violations with penalties of $30 and $35. Four saw-guarding…
John Hoaglin Auto Trim
Low-gravity shop violations affirmed with $75 total penalty
John Hoaglin Auto Trim contested only the penalties for ten admitted nonserious violations. The items included floor debris creating a trip hazard, naphtha stored in an unapproved container, unguarded sewing-machine belts, uncovered electrical outlet boxes, and ungrounded sewing and vending…
The Weatherhead Co.
Grinder-blotter citation reinstated
A Weatherhead employee operated an abrasive-wheel grinder without blotters between the wheel and its flanges. The company had previously been cited for the same condition on the same machine and had supplied blotters, but it showed no enforced work rule or instructions ensuring their use. The…
Pan American World Airways
Caution-marking item vacated
Pan American was cited after an inspection of its Kennedy International Airport workplace. The Commission vacated an item alleging that an 8-to-10-inch step beside a degreasing tank lacked yellow caution markings. It held that the cited color-code provision did not identify which physical hazards…
Love Box Company
First-aid violation affirmed
Love Box manufactured corrugated boxes and employed about 151 workers. The Commission held that the company needed a person trained in first aid on its second shift because the nearest hospital was about nine minutes away, and it assessed a $25 penalty. It vacated an aisle-obstruction item because…
Worcester Pressed Steel Company
Duplicate aisle item vacated, higher penalties sustained
Worcester Pressed Steel Company operated a large metal-stamping plant cited for 40 nonserious safety violations. The cited conditions included poor housekeeping and floors, obstructed and unmarked aisles, missing exit signs and eye protection, forklift hazards, inadequate machine guarding, and…
Tobacco River Lumber Co.
Mixed ruling on thirty sawmill citation items
Tobacco River operated a Montana sawmill and planing mill that received a thirty-item citation covering housekeeping, stairs, protective equipment, fire safety, tools, gas cylinders, machinery, and electrical conditions. The Commission upheld the inspection because a company employee with authority…
Irvington Moore, Division of U.S. Natural Resources, Inc.
Press-brake guarding violation reinstated
Irvington Moore manufactured sawmill machinery and used a press brake, an ironworker, and two saws at its Oregon plant. The Commission held that the general point-of-operation guarding standard applied to the press brake even though the specific mechanical power-press standard excluded press brakes…
Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, A Div. of United Aircraft Corp.
Locked-exit violation affirmed with reduced penalty
Pratt & Whitney assembled and tested rocket and jet engines in a large room that held as many as 150 employees and contained flammable liquids and several possible ignition sources. Six of the room's seven exits were locked for security, and employees were sometimes locked inside for ten to thirty…
Illinois Central Gulf Railroad Co.
Forty-six citation items vacated as untimely
OSHA cited 46 alleged safety, health, recordkeeping, and posting violations at Illinois Central Gulf Railroad's locomotive repair facility in Paducah, Kentucky. The inspection was coordinated with the Federal Railroad Administration, and the proposed citation moved through regional and national…
Union Pacific Railroad Company
Five repair-shop items affirmed
OSHA cited eight conditions in Union Pacific's Cheyenne machine and wheel shops. The Commission affirmed five items involving missing crane load markings, uncaged access ladders, absent crane inspections, uninspected fire extinguishers, and missing extinguisher maintenance tags, with $295 in…
Tech-Steel, Inc.
$30 penalty assessed for obstructed aisles
Tech-Steel fabricated structural steel at a Utah facility. The company admitted that scrap metal, extension cords, welding leads, and hoses obstructed work areas, aisles, and passageways used with overhead cranes. The judge affirmed the violations but vacated the proposed $30 penalty. The…
Swan Lake Moulding Co.
Seven violations and $265 penalty affirmed
Swan Lake Moulding operated a cabinet shop and retail building-materials yard where OSHA cited electrical, machine-guarding, housekeeping, and floor hazards. The company contested the penalties for seven items but did not dispute the cited conditions. The judge affirmed those seven violations and…
Milprint, Inc.
Fixed-stair item vacated for lack of proof
OSHA issued Milprint 13 non-serious citation items covering conditions at its Milwaukee plant. The judge affirmed nine items and vacated four, assessing penalties totaling $280. On review, the Commission reversed the fixed-stair item because OSHA did not prove that employees regularly used the…
Frankford Woolen Mills, Inc.
Tenant floor-load item vacated and $335 assessed
Frankford Woolen Mills was cited for 24 non-serious conditions involving housekeeping, stairs, ladders, exits, eye protection, fire extinguishers, machinery, compressed air, welding equipment, electrical grounding, and aisles. The administrative law judge affirmed 19 items, vacated five, and…
Silver Skillet Food Products Company
Four safety items affirmed and one vacated
Silver Skillet processed and canned food at an Illinois plant. OSHA cited a boiler-room fire door tied open, warped metal floor plates, two ladders without safety feet, a padlocked fire exit, and unsecured dock plates. The judge affirmed the fire-door, floor-plate, exit, and dock-plate items. He…
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.