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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Secretary of Labor v. Consol Buchanan Mining Company, LLC
Secretary of Labor v. Consol Buchanan Mining Company, LLC (FMSHRC VA 2014-198): Stockpile jurisdiction and methane-recirculation citations affirmed
Consol Buchanan used a site listed as abandoned to store excess clean coal and challenged MSHA's authority over an upper-gate guard house and a bulldozer kept there. Judge Thomas P. McCarthy held that the stockpile remained a mine because storing and loading coal are part of coal preparation, the…
Secretary of Labor v. Ellis & Eastern Company
Secretary of Labor v. Ellis & Eastern Company (FMSHRC CENT 2014-451): Railroad repair shop fell outside MSHA jurisdiction
MSHA cited Ellis & Eastern for failing to set a truck's parking brake inside its Sioux Falls railroad maintenance shop, which serviced locomotives used to transport quarry products. Judge L. Zane Gill held that the shop was physically separate from the quarry, repaired transportation equipment…
Secretary of Labor v. Power Fuels, LLC
Secretary of Labor v. Power Fuels, LLC (FMSHRC VA 2013-403, et al.): Coal blending terminal held subject to Mine Act
Power Fuels operated a stand-alone terminal that received coal and coal byproducts, stored and blended them to a power company's daily specifications, and then shipped the prepared fuel to the plant. Judge George A. Koutras held that these activities were the work of preparing coal, making the…
Secretary of Labor v. SCH Terminal Company, Inc.
Secretary of Labor v. SCH Terminal Company, Inc. (FMSHRC KENT 2013-413 et al.): MSHA jurisdiction extended to barge-loading work
SCH Terminal blended coal to customer specifications at a land facility and loaded the finished blends onto barges at its Tennessee River dock. Its deckhands staged, moved, pumped, measured, and secured the barges so coal could be loaded, but SCH argued that the Mine Act did not reach that…
Secretary of Labor v. Consolidation Coal Company
Secretary of Labor v. Consolidation Coal Company (FMSHRC WEVA 2010-176, et al.): MSHA jurisdiction ended at empty river barges
A preparation-plant foreman drowned after apparently falling from an empty barge on the Ohio River while checking barges for water at Consolidation Coal's Ireland River Loading Facility. The company accepted MSHA jurisdiction over the land-based facility but disputed coverage of the loading dock…
Shamokin Filler Company, Inc.
Shamokin Filler Company, Inc. (FMSHRC PENN 2009-775): Carbon plant held subject to Mine Act
Shamokin operated a plant that dried, screened, stored, bagged, and sold anthracite coal to customer specifications. The Commission affirmed that these activities made the plant a custom coal-preparation facility and therefore a mine under the Mine Act, even though the plant also handled non-coal…
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.