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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Dukane Precast, Inc.
Confined-space and delayed-rescue violations affirmed
Dukane Precast manufactured concrete products using large aggregate bins that it had identified as permit-required confined spaces. An employee entered a sand bin, became engulfed up to his neck, and remained trapped while untrained co-workers entered the bin to attempt a rescue. The judge affirmed…
J.C. Watson Company
Onion packing operations were subject to general-industry standards
J.C. Watson Company grew onions and operated an Idaho facility that cleaned, sorted, graded, packaged, and prepared them for shipment. After an employee's arm was caught under a moving conveyor, OSHA cited the company under numerous general-industry standards. Watson argued that its packing work…
ConAgra, Inc.
Joint motion ends Commission review
OSHA cited ConAgra after an employee at a Buffalo grain elevator was seriously injured when a rail-car puller's wire cable snapped. The underlying judge affirmed a general-duty-clause violation as serious, affirmed stair and platform guarding violations, and vacated a lockout…
Unarco Commercial Products
Commission holds plating-tank footholds were not platforms
Unarco manufactured shopping carts on an automated electroplating line in Wagoner, Oklahoma. Employees sometimes stood on narrow PVC pipes, copper anode rails, or carry arms to retrieve parts that had fallen into chemical tanks, and one employee had suffered serious burns after falling into a tank…
Berkman Brothers, Inc.
Settlement requires fall protection and a $280 penalty
Berkman Brothers operated an electroplating facility where employees worked on walkways beside tanks containing heated and corrosive chemicals. OSHA cited the company for failing to guard employees against falls into the tanks or contact with their contents. In a settlement during Commission…
D.A. & S. Oil Well Servicing, Inc.
Respirator violation became final after review brief was missed
D.A. & S. serviced an oil and gas well in an area where highly toxic hydrogen sulfide could be encountered, but it had no emergency respirators at the site. The judge found that engineering controls could fail and affirmed a serious respiratory-protection violation with a $280 penalty. He vacated…
Ricardo Correa, Jr., d/b/a Ricardo's Mexican Enterprises of Omaha
Masa-feeder failure-to-abate penalties vacated
Ricardo's Mexican Enterprises produced Mexican food in Omaha, Nebraska. OSHA initially cited conditions involving a masa feeder after a young employee was fatally injured while cleaning the machine, and the uncontested citation became final. In the later failure-to-abate case, the Commission found…
Advance Specialty Company, Inc.
Cyanide-gas and guarding violations affirmed
Advance Specialty fabricated wire parts at a worksite shared with Platers and Coaters, an affiliated plating operation under common ownership and management. An employee of each company died when an inexperienced worker mixed acid salts with sodium cyanide and produced hydrogen cyanide gas. The…
Amory Cotton Oil Company
Screw-conveyor guarding amendment remanded
Amory Cotton Oil employees manually pushed cottonseed into an uncovered floor-level screw conveyor, and one employee was fatally injured. OSHA cited a power-transmission shaft standard, but at the hearing sought to add an open-sided-floor standard and the general machine-guarding standard after the…
Midwest By Products, Inc.
First-aid and LP-gas items reinstated, ladder item vacated
OSHA cited hazards at Midwest By Products' rendering plant, including unguarded screw conveyors, defective ladders, inadequate first-aid preparation, an unsafe grinder, electrical defects, and an unprotected propane tank. The company admitted most of the nonserious violations and later acknowledged…
Colorado Fuel & Iron Steel Corp., a/k/a C.F. & I. Steel Corp.
Mixed steel-mill citations affirmed and vacated
OSHA issued 48 nonserious items at Colorado Fuel & Iron's Pueblo steel mill involving cranes, respirators, sanitation, welding, electrical equipment, access, housekeeping, and fall hazards. The judge affirmed many admitted or proved items, vacated others for insufficient proof or inapplicable…
Badger Aluminum Extrusion Corp.
Acid-tank platform penalty restored
Badger Aluminum used an unguarded platform above a tank containing a five-foot depth of 15 percent sulfuric acid solution. An employee worked on the platform, creating a risk of falling into the tank. The judge affirmed a nonserious guardrail violation but vacated the proposed penalty because the…
Colorado Fuel & Iron Steel Corp.
Serious hot-roll-line guarding violation affirmed
Colorado Fuel & Iron operated a steel mill in Pueblo, Colorado. Employees worked beside a roll table carrying steel bars heated above 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit at speeds of 15 to 20 miles per hour. The citation alleged that a recorder lacked protection from bars leaving the table and that a crop…
Hodgdon Shingle & Shake Company
Serious saw-guarding violation draws $1 penalty
Hodgdon operated a small Oregon shake and shingle mill with five large saws that did not meet OSHA's machine-guarding standard. The company admitted that the violation was serious, but the record showed that all guards known to the industry were already in use and no supplier offered conforming…
Sierra Pacific Industries, Hayfork Division
Eight sawmill items affirmed with $435 penalties
OSHA cited 11 conditions at Sierra Pacific's California sawmill, including platform railings, guarding around a lift and sawmill machinery, blocked exit access, sanitation, stairs, and crane equipment. The company admitted four items, and the judge affirmed four additional contested items involving…
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.