S.J. Groves & Sons Company

Plain-English summary

S.J. Groves & Sons Company had contested an OSHA citation that the Commission earlier decided against it. The company appealed, and in May 1981 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the Commission and sent the case back with instructions to enter an order vacating the citation. This short order carries out that instruction. The Commission explained that the appeals court's decision is the law of the case and must be followed on remand under section 11(a) of the OSH Act. Accordingly, the Commission vacated the citation.

Decision snapshot

• Cited standard(s): None enumerated in this remand order.
• Outcome: Vacated. On remand, the Commission entered the order directed by the Second Circuit and vacated the citation.
• Key point: A court of appeals decision reversing the Commission is the law of the case; on remand the Commission must follow it, here by vacating the citation.

Full text (OSHRC public release)

[Transcriber's note: The official OSHRC HTML release contained Unicode replacement characters (U+FFFD) in place of section symbols (restored here as "§" and "§§" from context) and as empty separator glyphs (dropped). No wording has been added or changed. The bracketed star-pagination markers ([1], [2]) appear in the official source and are reproduced as released; the "80 OSAHRC" citation is blank in the source where a docket-page number would appear. The document's own date of issuance is July 13, 1981; the index row that generated this slug records the date as 1979-06-27, which the document text shows to be incorrect.]

Docket No. 78-5084

S.J. GROVES & SONS COMPANY

OSHRC Docket No. 78-5084

Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission

July 13, 1981

COUNSEL:

[*1]

Office of the Solicitor, USDOL

Francis V. LaRuffa, Regional Solicitor, U.S. Department of Labor

Brian M. Cole, for the employer

OPINION:

ORDER

This case is before the Commission on remand from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. S.J. Groves & Sons Co. v. OSHRC and the Secretary of Labor, No. 80-4201 (2d Cir. May 1, 1981), rev'g & remanding S.J. Groves & Sons Co., 80 OSAHRC , 8 BNA OSHC 1766, 1980 CCH OSHD P24,665 (No. 78-5084, 1980). The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the case for entry of an order vacating the citation.

The decision of the Second Circuit on appeal constitutes the law of this case which must be followed on remand. See section 11(a), 29 U.S.C. § 660(a), of the Occupational Safety & Health Act of 1970, 29 U.S.C. §§ 651-678; Briggs v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 334 U.S. 304, 306 (1948); Stewart-Warner Corp., 80 OSAHRC 28/F4, 8 BNA OSHC 1316, 1980 CCH OSHD P24,472 (No. 78-5910, 1980) (lead and concurring [*2] opinions); Frank Irey, Jr., Inc., 77 OSAHRC 192/F11, 5 BNA OSHC 2031, 1977-78 CCH OSHD P22,283 (No. 701, 1977). Accordingly, the citation is vacated. SO ORDERED.