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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Diamond Roofing Company, Inc.
Roof fall-protection case remanded for defenses
Diamond Roofing employees installed roofing on a narrow pedestrian walkway about 27 feet above a concrete sidewalk and a heavily traveled road. They worked near the roof edge without safety belts, nets, guardrails, or any other listed fall protection. The Commission held that the permanent metal…
Mattson Construction Co.
Repeated classifications and $2,160 penalties reinstated
OSHA cited Mattson Construction for an unguarded second-floor edge, ladder rails that did not extend 36 inches above the landing, and an unmarked electrical circuit box. The judge affirmed the violations but reduced their repeated classifications because he found no flaunting disregard of the Act…
D. Fortunato, Inc.
Mixed result on garage fall-protection, housekeeping, and fire-alarm citations
D. Fortunato, Inc. was the general contractor building a parking garage at New York City's La Guardia Airport, and OSHA cited it for fall-protection, housekeeping, and fire-alarm violations. An Administrative Law Judge affirmed most items, and the Commission reviewed and reached a mixed result. It…
Stahr and Gregory Roofing Co., Inc.
Ladder and floor-guarding violations affirmed
Stahr and Gregory employees repeatedly used two ladders to reach roofing work, passing an unguarded second-floor edge and an inadequately guarded floor opening. The company did not create or control the conditions, and the general contractor was responsible for guardrails, but Stahr and Gregory…
McLean-Behm Steel Erectors, Inc.
Subcontractor must at least ask the general contractor to fix a fall hazard
A steel-erection subcontractor placing reinforcing steel on a three-story church addition had employees working near an unguarded floor opening and open, unguarded floor edges with drops of up to twenty-five feet. OSHA cited it for a nonserious floor-opening violation (29 C.F.R. § 1926.500(b)(1))…
Charles A. Gaetano Construction Corp.
Four serious citations affirmed
Charles A. Gaetano Construction was building a parking ramp when OSHA cited serious hazards involving an inadequately guarded saw, missing personal fall protection, incomplete floor-edge guardrails, and an unguarded carpenter's bracket scaffold. The company argued that an ANSI standard incorporated…
Sierra Construction Corp.
Five high-rise construction violations affirmed
Sierra Construction Corp., the general contractor for a seventeen-story hotel addition, was cited for five fall-protection, material-storage, floor-opening, and crane-signal violations. Fifteen employees worked near open floor edges and gaps about 130 feet above ground without fall protection, and…
Gotham Electric Company
Subcontractor safety violations conditionally affirmed
Gotham Electric Company employees were exposed to construction debris, defective job-made ladders, unguarded floor openings, and unguarded open-sided floors at a multi-employer worksite. The electrical subcontractor did not create or control the conditions, but the Commission held that an exposing…
Schriber Sheet Metal & Roofers, Inc.
A divided Commission affirms a general-duty fall citation for unguarded flat-roof work
Schriber Sheet Metal & Roofers received three nearly identical citations for letting employees work near the edge of flat roofs about 25 feet up without guardrails or other fall protection. Each citation alleged a serious violation of both a specific construction standard, 29 C.F.R. 1926.500(d)(1)…
Quality Roofing Company
Guardrail citation vacated after amendment dispute
OSHA cited Quality Roofing Company for failing to provide a guardrail or equivalent protection for employees working on a flat roof. Before the hearing, the Secretary sought to replace that allegation with an alternative charge requiring safety nets when other fall-protection methods were…
Hogan Mechanical, Inc.
Citations vacated because foreman's exposure was not foreseeable
Hogan Mechanical installed mechanical equipment at construction sites and employed a working foreman who reported directly to the company president. OSHA cited the company for unsecured ladder conditions and missing guardrails after the foreman went alone to a church project, although he had told…
Constructora Maza, Inc.
Construction violations and $4,455 penalties affirmed
Constructora Maza was building a three-building complex in Puerto Rico. OSHA cited missing stair railings, scaffolds supported by concrete blocks, a weakened scaffold plank, unguarded floor edges, unsecured compressed-gas cylinders, and improperly built ladder cleats. The Commission relied on…
Schreiber Corporation
Roof-guardrail citation remained vacated
OSHA cited Schreiber Corporation for failing to provide guardrails or equivalent protection for employees working on a flat roof. Before the hearing, the Secretary sought to add alternative allegations under the personal-protective-equipment rule and the general duty clause. The judge denied the…
Julius Nasso Concrete Corp., S & A Concrete Co., Inc., a Joint Venture
Perimeter-guarding violation affirmed
The joint venture was a concrete subcontractor on a multistory project in New York City. Five employees installed long reinforcing bars within 10 feet of an unguarded third-floor edge about 30 feet above the ground. The company argued that its mobile barriers had to be removed to handle the 33-foot…
Cotner & Cotner, Incorporated
Open-floor violation affirmed with reduced penalty
Cotner & Cotner was a cement-finishing subcontractor whose employees worked at the edge of an unguarded floor 12 feet above the ground. The company argued that it did not create or control the condition and lacked authority to install guardrails. The Commission held that a subcontractor on a…
Tri-State Roofing and Sheet Metal Company
Flat-roof citation remained vacated
OSHA cited Tri-State Roofing for failing to install guardrails at the edge of a flat roof, then sought to add an alternative allegation that employees lacked safety belts. The judge vacated the original charge because the cited guardrail standard did not apply to flat roofs and denied the amendment…
Granger Contracting Co., Inc.
Repeated guardrail violation and $950 penalty affirmed
Granger Contracting was the general contractor on a Massachusetts construction project where three floor perimeters had only a top rail or single wire rope instead of complete guardrails. The company did not dispute the violation but challenged its repeated classification and $950 penalty. The…
White Plains Iron Works, Inc.
Flat-roof guardrail citation and $1,400 penalty vacated
The judge affirmed a repeated-serious citation alleging that White Plains Iron Works failed to install perimeter guarding on a flat roof. After that ruling, the Commission held in another case that the cited open-sided-floor standard did not apply to flat roofs. Because that precedent controlled…
Truland Corporation
Guardrail violation conditionally affirmed with $100 penalty
Truland was an electrical subcontractor whose employees worked within three feet of a second-floor edge protected only by a sagging wire rope. The judge found a serious guardrail violation, allowed OSHA to amend the original nonserious classification before the hearing, and assessed $100 instead of…
Sletten Construction Co.
Bridge-platform fall-protection violations affirmed
Sletten employees worked on a bridge cofferdam platform about 12 feet above the Yellowstone River with an unguarded edge and an uncovered opening. Another employee worked 18 feet above the ground without using a provided safety belt. The Commission rejected impossibility because guardrails could…
Emerick Construction, a corporation
Commission reviews only the penalties, drops the bulb-guard fine, and cuts the repeated-violation penalty
Emerick Construction was the general contractor building a hospital addition when two OSHA inspections produced four violations, later consolidated before Administrative Law Judge Thomas J. Donegan. Emerick did not dispute that the violations happened; it argued only that the penalties were too…
Luhr Brothers Inc.
Federal-project noise citations reinstated
Luhr Brothers was an excavation subcontractor on an Army Corps of Engineers flood-control project in Missouri. OSHA cited construction noise-control, hearing-conservation, and guardrail violations. The judge dismissed the case on the ground that Corps safety requirements displaced OSHA coverage…
Willherco, Inc., Bermudez & Longo, Inc.
Subcontractor citations affirmed
Willherco and Bermudez & Longo were plumbing and electrical subcontractors at the same multi-employer construction site. Their employees had access to unguarded elevator shafts, stairways, and open-sided floors, although the subcontractors did not create the hazards and the general contractor was…
VECCO Concrete Construction of D.C., Inc.
Tower-crane platform citation affirmed
VECCO used a tower crane whose operator's cab was about 98 feet above the ground. The four-foot-square access platform beside the cab had an unguarded side facing the crane mast, with a gap of about one to two feet. The judge vacated the citation because OSHA had not separately proved that the…
Mayfair Construction Company
Sears Tower citation items split
Mayfair performed concrete construction during the Sears Tower project and contested eight nonserious citation items. The Commission vacated a temporary-wiring item because OSHA did not connect Mayfair employees to the specific wiring hazards. It also vacated a ladder-cleat item because the spacing…
Olson Construction Co.
Multi-employer guarding citations largely affirmed
Olson was a prime contractor on a state office-building project and controlled worksite safety, including the installation of guarding devices. OSHA cited missing guardrails, uncovered floor holes, unfilled stair pans, open-sided floors, and other fall hazards accessible to workers from several…
Vappi & Company
Repeated violations left in effect
Vappi, a Massachusetts building contractor, was cited at a Boston worksite for temporary-building fire protection and open-sided-floor guarding violations. The company had twice violated the same standards at other Boston-area worksites. The judge classified the new violations as repeated because…
All-State Industries, Inc.
Flat-roof guardrail citation vacated
All-State employees were installing a flat roof when one employee fell 14.5 feet and was fatally injured. OSHA cited the company for failing to install perimeter guardrails and later sought to add an alternative allegation that employees should have used safety belts and lanyards. The Commission…
Linbeck Construction Corporation
Flat-roof railing citation vacated
Linbeck Construction was cited for failing to install perimeter railings on a flat roof under construction. The judge found railings infeasible but treated safety belts as the equivalent of a standard railing and affirmed the citation. The Commission reversed because the rule's reference to an…
Emile M. Babst Co.
Subcontractor fall-protection citations reinstated
Emile M. Babst was a subcontractor whose employees encountered unguarded floor openings, an open-sided floor, and stairway hazards created and controlled by the prime contractor. The Commission held that a non-creating, non-controlling subcontractor may still be liable when its employees are…
Big '6' Drilling Company
Rig citations remanded for further evidence
Big '6' Drilling received eight nonserious citations and one serious general-duty citation after an inspection of an oil and gas drilling rig. Its pro se notice focused on the $805 proposed penalties, but its later answer requested a hearing about the inspection and penalties. The Commission…
Anastasi Brothers Corporation
Commission affirms an open-sided-floor violation against a masonry subcontractor
Anastasi Brothers Corporation was a masonry subcontractor whose employees had access to an unguarded open-sided floor at a construction site. The general contractor, rather than Anastasi, was responsible for providing the required perimeter guarding. The Commission held that a subcontractor that…
Diamond Roofing Company, Inc.
Commission vacates a flat-roof perimeter-guarding citation
Diamond Roofing Company was cited for failing to install perimeter guarding on a flat roof under 29 C.F.R. § 1926.500(d)(1). An administrative law judge affirmed that citation item. The Commission applied its divided decision in Central City Roofing Co., which held that the cited standard did not…
Western Waterproofing Co., Inc.
Commission affirms serious unguarded-floor violation for subcontractor's exposed workers
Western Waterproofing was a subcontractor whose employees patched concrete columns at the unguarded edge of a building's sixth floor without fall protection. The company sought to suppress the compliance officer's observations because he saw the condition before presenting credentials to its…
Otis Elevator Company
Elevator-car top was not a floor or platform requiring guardrails
Two Otis Elevator employees stood on top of an elevator car while painting counterweight rails during installation. OSHA alleged a repeated violation because the car top lacked a standard railing. The Commission held that the surface was the roof of the elevator car, not an open-sided floor or a…
Paramount Plumbing & Heating Co.
Two shared-site hazards affirmed, open-floor item vacated
Paramount Plumbing worked as a subcontractor on a New York City high-rise project. The Commission vacated an open-floor guardrail item because OSHA did not prove that Paramount's employees would enter the fall-hazard zones on the seventh or twenty-ninth floors. It affirmed items involving ladder…
Roanoke Iron & Bridge Works, Inc.
Column-sliding violation affirmed, other fall-protection charges rejected
Roanoke Iron & Bridge Works was erecting a five-story office building when employees regularly slid down vertical steel columns instead of using an available ladder for the final 50 feet to the ground. The Commission rejected the judge's greater-hazard defense because the record did not show that…
S. Puma Co., Inc.
Flat-roof perimeter guarding citation vacated
The judge affirmed a citation alleging that S. Puma failed to install perimeter guarding on a flat roof. The Commission applied its prior holding in Central City Roofing that the cited open-sided floor standard did not apply to flat roofs. It therefore vacated the citation and associated penalty.
Zwicker Electric Co., Inc.
Guardrail case remanded for employee-access and multiemployer defenses
Two Zwicker Electric employees spent two to three minutes on the fifth floor of a building under construction to determine whether it was ready and safe for later electrical work. Part of the floor perimeter was unguarded, but testimony conflicted over whether the employees were 3 feet or 25 feet…
Riverview Steel Erectors, Inc.
Steel-erection perimeter citation affirmed under a substituted standard
A Riverview Steel Erectors employee swept snow about one foot from the unguarded edge of a temporary metal-decked third floor, 22 feet above the ground. The judge found that the general open-sided floor rule did not apply because the work was still part of steel erection. He amended the charge to…
Martin E. Keller Roofing Co., Inc.
Flat-roof fall-protection citation vacated
Three Martin E. Keller Roofing employees worked near the edge of a flat roof about 17 feet above the ground, beside a parapet measured at 14 to 18 inches. The judge found that perimeter guardrails would obstruct the roofing and flashing work at the edge. He also accepted unrebutted testimony that…
Derr Construction Company
Safety-belt citation affirmed, five other steel-erection items vacated
Derr Construction was erecting a high-rise steel frame when an ironworker worked on the top edge of a girder on the 13th floor without using an available safety belt. The Commission upheld the serious personal protective equipment violation because the worker faced an obvious fall hazard and the…
George Hyman Construction Company
Six repeated classifications stand after a divided Commission
George Hyman admitted six construction violations involving material storage, electrical grounding, temporary-light guards, ladder clearance, floor-edge guarding, and crane operation. Each standard had been cited previously at another nearby Hyman worksite, and those earlier citations had become…
H. W. Ivey Construction Co., Inc.
Scaffold and tower violations affirmed, other fall items vacated
H. W. Ivey was constructing a four-level parking garage with scaffolds at three corners and an approximately 40-foot elevator and stair tower. The judge affirmed serious violations for missing or improperly installed scaffold cross-bracing, missing scaffold guardrails and toeboards, and an…
Suburban Concrete Corporation
Floor-hole and open-side items affirmed, concrete-work charge vacated
Suburban Concrete Corporation had an employee correcting work on the second floor of a construction site after the area had been turned over to the general contractor. OSHA cited an uncovered floor hole and loose cables along open sides of the floor, both within several feet of the employee's work…
Zwicker Electric Company
Building-opening and stairway charges vacated for lack of employee access
Zwicker Electric Company was an electrical subcontractor working in two 20-story buildings at a Brooklyn construction project. OSHA cited unguarded lobby door and window openings beside deep exterior ditches and two stairways without railings. The Commission found that OSHA's inspector gave…
Therrel-Kizer, Inc.
Flat-roof perimeter-guarding citation vacated
Therrel-Kizer was cited for failing to install perimeter guarding on a flat roof. The administrative law judge affirmed the citation under the open-sided-floor standard. The Commission applied its intervening decision holding that the cited standard did not apply to flat roofs. It therefore vacated…
Tip-Top Roofers, Inc. and Western Waterproofing Co., Inc.
Flat-roof guarding citations vacated
Tip-Top Roofers and Western Waterproofing were separately cited for failing to install perimeter guarding on flat roofs. The administrative law judge affirmed both citations. The Commission consolidated the cases because they presented the same factual and legal issue. Applying its intervening…
Aniero Concrete Company, Inc.
Floor-edge and opening citations narrowed with penalties reduced to $600
Aniero Concrete was the concrete subcontractor on a ten-story office-building project in New Jersey. Its employees removed perimeter cables and floor-opening covers while cleanup and crane removal work was still underway, placing workers within one to three feet of unguarded edges and near loosely…
Southwestern Roofing & Sheet Metal Co.
Fuel-container item affirmed and roof citation vacated
Southwestern Roofing used an unapproved five-gallon gasoline can to refuel a tar-pot engine even though an approved container was available nearby. The judge affirmed that item without penalty because the can lacked a self-closing lid and flame-arresting screen, creating a preventable fire or…
First Colony Corporation
Silo fall-protection violation affirmed for $600
Three First Colony employees installed concrete caps on 75-foot silos while working within two or three feet of unguarded edges without belts, lifelines, nets, or other fall protection. The judge vacated the original guardrail allegation because the cited open-sided-floor standard did not apply to…
Julius Hochman, d/b/a Hochman Roofing Company
Hard-hat item affirmed and roof-edge citation vacated
A Hochman Roofing ground worker stood below the edge of a roof where construction materials were located near the perimeter. The judge found that falling objects could strike the worker and affirmed the nonserious hard-hat violation with a $25 penalty. A separate serious citation alleged that two…
Underhill Construction Corp. and DIC Concrete Corp., trading as DIC-Underhill, a Joint Venture
Willful high-rise guardrail violation affirmed for $5,000
DIC-Underhill employees worked on the fifteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth floors of a high-rise construction project without required perimeter guardrails or equivalent fall protection. The Commission rejected the argument that the horse-scaffold standard displaced the open-sided-floor standard…
Julius Nasso Concrete Corporation
Horse-scaffold guardrail claim remanded for hearing
An employee allegedly worked on an unguarded horse scaffold only eight feet above its supporting floor but next to a building perimeter where a fall could extend about 100 feet. The judge granted summary judgment for the employer because the scaffold itself was less than ten feet high. The…
Spring Sheet Metal & Roofing Co., Inc.
Roof fall-protection citation vacated
Spring Sheet Metal employees worked on flat roof areas and accessed small upper roofs across sloped sections of a building with pagoda-like structures. OSHA alleged that the company failed to guard open roof edges and added an alternative catch-platform allegation for work involving the sloped…
Flintco, Inc.
Hoist and radial-saw violations affirmed
OSHA cited Flintco during construction of a high-rise hospital addition for a personnel hoist without guy lines, employees working near an unguarded edge without safety belts, a radial arm saw that did not return automatically, and an unguarded roof edge. The judge affirmed the hoist violation…
Dic-Underhill, A Joint Venture
Willful guardrail violation affirmed
Dic-Underhill employed about 80 people performing concrete work at the World Trade Center construction site. OSHA found two accessible open-sided floor locations without guardrails and also cited missing fire extinguishing equipment near a stairway. The Commission affirmed the guardrail violation…
Bonitz All-Weather Crete Co., Inc.
Flat-roof guardrail citation vacated
Bonitz employees installed roof insulation on a flat hospital roof about 26 feet above the ground without guardrails or other fall protection. The judge found a serious violation after rejecting the company's claims that guardrails were infeasible or would create a greater hazard, and assessed a…
Briscoe/Arace/Conduit, A Joint Venture
Beam fall-protection item affirmed and roof item vacated
Employees of the joint venture worked on 18-inch-wide beam bottoms about 16 feet above a basement floor cluttered with stored scaffolding. They used no personal fall protection. The Commission affirmed a serious violation and a $700 penalty because a cable system for attaching safety belts was…
J. P. Fyfe, Inc.
Flat-roof guardrail citation vacated
J. P. Fyfe employees performed roofing work on a one-story building about 15 to 17 feet above the ground. OSHA observed seven employees on the roof, including two within two or three feet of the edge, without perimeter guarding or personal fall protection. OSHA alleged a repeat serious…
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.