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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McWane, Inc. Dba Atlantic States Cast Iron & Pipe
Abatement petitions resolved
McWane filed two petitions seeking modification of OSHA abatement requirements. After negotiations, the company withdrew its requests concerning several citation items in both dockets. The judge granted the remaining request in docket 03-1450, adjusting the abatement date for Citation 2, Item 2 to…
E.J. Sciaba Construction Co., Inc.
Case dismissed for lack of a notice of contest
OSHA cited E.J. Sciaba Construction after a Massachusetts worksite inspection and proposed $9,000 in penalties. Sciaba then signed an informal settlement reducing the penalties but did not make the agreed payment. More than two months after receiving the citations, the company sent a letter asking…
Metropak Containers Corp.
Protected noise-study evidence excluded after unauthorized disclosure
The Secretary used a private expert to study engineering controls for a noise citation at Metropak's facility under an order limiting the information to the case. An OSHA compliance officer showed one of the protected reports to an area director, who disclosed it to a Metropak competitor. The judge…
Louisiana-Pacific Corp.
Commission reverses a promptness dismissal and remands a workplace-noise citation
OSHA cited Louisiana-Pacific Corporation's Moyie Springs, Idaho facility under the occupational-noise standard after a December 1973 inspection. The judge vacated the citation without reaching the merits because it was issued on January 7, 1974 and, in his view, lacked reasonable promptness. The…
Independent Pier Company; Holt Marine Terminal, Inc.; I.T.O. of Ameriport, Inc.; Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc.
Longshore hard-hat violations affirmed but employee order vacated
Six consolidated cases involved stevedoring companies whose longshore employees refused to wear supplied hard hats at the Port of Philadelphia. The judge held the employers responsible under 29 C.F.R. § 1918.105(a), affirmed or modified the citations, and assessed penalties totaling $545 across the…
Southern Railway Company
Locomotive-derailer violation and $200 penalty affirmed
Southern Railway employees worked in maintenance pits where moving locomotives could strike locomotives under repair, and the company relied on its industry-standard blue-flag or blue-light rule rather than installing derailers. The Commission held that industry custom helped establish recognition…
Eastern Knitting Mills, Inc.
Employer's abatement letter treated as a contest
OSHA cited Eastern Knitting Mills for 12 nonserious violations and proposed $400 in penalties. Within the statutory contest period, the company wrote that it had corrected or was correcting all items except item 10 and asked for help because it did not know how to meet that item's abatement…
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.