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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D & H Pump Service, Inc.
Excavation and barricade violations affirmed
D & H Pump Service performed work in a 14-foot-deep excavation whose nearly vertical sides had begun sloughing and collapsing. The judge found that the company's working vice president and a borrowed equipment operator were protected employees, or alternatively were workers exposed to hazards that…
James M. Inman Construction Corp.
Serious excavation violation affirmed with a reduced penalty
James M. Inman Construction was the general contractor for construction of a department store in Hackensack, New Jersey. A front-end loader used a muddy road beside a seven-foot-deep excavation where no stop logs or barricades protected the edge, and a concrete subcontractor's employee was standing…
Lloyd C. Lockrem, Inc.
Mobile-equipment trench item revived and remanded
Lloyd C. Lockrem installed an underground concrete sewer line in a ground cavity that qualified as a trench. A front-end loader backfilled the cavity with its front wheels as close as 1.5 feet from the edge, and no stop logs or barricades were installed. The judge vacated the cited excavation…
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review, an ALJ decision becomes a final order under 29 U.S.C. § 661(j): it binds the parties in that case but is not binding precedent in other cases.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.