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.
No decisions match these filters
Try a different search term or clear the filters.
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…
B. & S. Roofing Co., Inc.
Defective-ladder item affirmed without penalty
B. & S. Roofing employees worked near the edge of a flat roof without personal fall-protection equipment and accessed the roof using an extension ladder with a broken pulley rung and splintered rails. The judge affirmed the defective-ladder item because the standard prohibited use of a ladder with…
Quick Erectors, Inc.
Window-installation fall citation vacated
Quick Erectors employees installed window frames at fifth-floor wall openings about 40 feet above the ground without midrails or safety belts. The judge found a fall hazard but concluded that a standard intermediate rail would obstruct the frame work and had to be removed for final window…
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…
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…
Croom Construction Co.
Safety-belt citation vacated under wrong standard
A Croom Construction employee fell through a temporarily covered roof opening to a concrete floor 15 to 17 feet below and died. OSHA cited the company for not using lifelines, safety belts, or lanyards while employees installed roofing sheets. The Commission held that the cited standard regulated…
SACO Electric, Inc.
Safety-belt violation affirmed for elevated electrical work
SACO Electric sent an employee to install electrical equipment on a grain-elevator structure more than 50 feet above the ground. The employee was not wearing a safety belt, and the OSHA inspector and employee found no belts in the employee’s truck. SACO asserted in its answer that the experienced…
Masonry Construction Co., Inc.
Judge’s ruling left unchanged, including eye-protection item
Masonry Construction’s case came before the Commission on its own review order, but no party objected to the judge’s decision. The Commission declined to decide the merits independently and left the judge’s ruling unchanged. Commissioner Moran’s separate opinion shows that item 3, alleging failure…
Nordman Roofing Co., Inc.
Amended flat-roof fall-protection citation affirmed
Nordman Roofing’s case came before the Commission on its own review order, but no party objected to the judge’s decision. The Commission declined to address the merits independently and left the judge’s ruling unchanged. Commissioner Moran’s dissent states that the judge found the originally cited…
Daniel Construction Company
Safety-net citation vacated for open-bay building
Daniel Construction was erecting a large open-bay steel building intended to house a turbine generator and related equipment. Employees worked more than 25 feet above the operating floor without safety nets or scaffolds, and an ironworker fell about 105 feet while connecting a roof truss and died…
Space Age Concrete & Masonry, Inc.
Fall-hazard items affirmed and four other citations vacated
Space Age Concrete & Masonry worked as a masonry subcontractor on a multistory building in Naples, Florida. Inspections found employees near uncovered elevator-shaft openings and working at unguarded edges without effective fall protection. The judge affirmed the floor-opening and…
Cornell & Co., Inc.
Safety-net violation affirmed for steel connectors
Cornell & Co. was erecting steel for a building in Philadelphia. Two steel connectors walked exterior girders at the eighth-floor level without safety belts or nets, facing a possible 200-foot fall outside the structure. The judge found safety belts and lifelines impractical because they could…
Union Steel Erectors, Inc.
Willful crane-riding and fall violations affirmed
OSHA observed Union Steel employees riding a crane hook, headache ball, and suspended steel loads 50 to 70 feet above the ground. The foreman knowingly allowed the practice for about a week, the general contractor had warned him it violated safety rules, and the crane operator knew it was…
Charles Vrana & Son Construction Company
Fatal roof-fall violations affirmed
Vrana employees repaired a tornado-damaged metal roof with loose sheets and open areas up to about 32 feet above ground. An apprentice stepped on an unsecured sheet and fell through the roof to his death. The judge found that workers received only general directions to remove debris and install…
Underhill Construction Corp. and DIC Concrete Corp., trading as DIC-Underhill, A Joint Venture
Safety-belt and hard-hat items upheld
Two DIC-Underhill employees grouted elevator sills near an unguarded shaft without properly secured safety belts. The Commission affirmed the personal-protective-equipment violation but vacated a separately pleaded lifeline-use provision because that provision did not require employees to use…
Frank Briscoe Company, Inc.
Construction citations partly upheld and partly vacated
Frank Briscoe was the general contractor for a multilevel building project where OSHA cited housekeeping, floor-opening, scaffold, ladder, fall-protection, and hard-hat conditions. The Commission vacated a general personal-protective-equipment item because OSHA did not identify or prove a feasible…
Frank Briscoe Company, Inc.
Fall-protection item affirmed and ladder citation amended
Frank Briscoe employees worked near unguarded building edges, including one employee standing on a ladder beside the open third-floor perimeter without a tied-off safety belt. The Commission vacated the roof-edge citation under then-current precedent holding that § 1926.500(d)(1) did not apply to…
Cornell & Co., Inc.
Safety-belt citation affirmed for 100-foot steel work
Cornell employees bolted steel on a flare derrick 100 feet above ground without tying off their safety belts, and no floor or net would break a fall. Before the hearing, OSHA replaced inapplicable temporary-floor and safety-net allegations with a charge under the personal-protective-equipment and…
Penrod Drilling Company
General duty citation vacated over hazard recognition
Penrod employees were preparing to dismantle an oil derrick and worked from a girder about 125 feet above the ground without safety belts. One employee stepped onto the bridle assembly, the sling broke, and he fell to his death. OSHA alleged a serious general duty clause violation and proposed a…
National Roofing of Sioux City, Inc.
Flat-roof citation vacated, chain-guard item affirmed
National Roofing employees applied tar near the edge of a flat school roof about 13 feet above the next level without guardrails, lifelines, or other fall protection. The Commission vacated the repeated citation under 29 C.F.R. § 1926.500(d)(1) because that standard did not apply to flat roofs. It…
A.C. & S., Inc. et al.
Sears Tower reviews provisionally vacated
These sixteen cases arose from an extended OSHA inspection of contractors working on Chicago's Sears Tower. The Commission declined review in four cases whose employers had not sought or participated in review and severed Crescent Erection's general-duty case for a separate decision. For the…
Kelly Construction Services, Inc.
Elevator-shaft fall-protection citation reinstated
Kelly Construction installed elevator door frames as a subcontractor in a Boston high-rise. Two employees raised a 200-pound frame within about eighteen inches of an open elevator shaft on the 24th floor while wearing safety belts whose lanyards were not tied off. The administrative law judge found…
Huber, Hunt & Nichols, Inc. and Blount Brothers Corporation, a Joint Venture
Superdome citations affirmed
The joint venture was general contractor for construction of the Louisiana Superdome, with about 350 employees and numerous subcontractors at the site. The Commission affirmed two serious citations and eighteen additional items covering perimeter and opening guards, personal protective equipment…
Sletten Construction Company
Fall-protection citation and $700 penalty affirmed
During bridge demolition in Superior, Montana, a Sletten employee worked without a safety harness on a steel beam only nine inches wide and about 34 feet above the river. The judge affirmed a serious personal-protective-equipment citation and assessed a $700 penalty. Neither party sought review…
A. C. Gonzalez Painting Contractors, Inc.
Ninth-floor lifeline violation affirmed
A. C. Gonzalez Painting Contractors had two employees painting from a two-point suspension scaffold at the ninth floor of a motel. Neither employee wore a safety belt attached to a lifeline, and no belts or lifelines were available at the scaffold. The Commission held that the lifeline requirement…
A. J. McNulty & Co., Inc.
Steel-erection fall violations affirmed
A. J. McNulty was a steel-construction subcontractor on a multistory building project. Three employees worked near the fourth-floor edge without safety belts, lanyards, or nets, and one employee welded while leaning or straddling the edge 40 to 50 feet above the ground. The Commission found that…
Warnel Corporation
Safety-belt violation affirmed after amendment
Two Warnel employees installed window frames at the edge of a third floor about 30 feet above the ground. They had to move outside the existing guardrail to perform the work, but they used no safety belts or other fall protection. The Commission held that a safety belt was not the structural…
Sweetman Construction Company
Scraper seat-belt violation affirmed
A scraper operator was killed after two earth-moving vehicles collided, which prompted OSHA to inspect Sweetman Construction's highway project. The record did not establish whether that employee had been wearing a seat belt before the accident, so no violation was found from the fatal incident…
Okland Construction Company
Fall-protection citation affirmed for work on wall forms
Okland employees assembled wall forms for concrete placement at a power-station project. One employee died after falling 15 to 18 feet while installing a horizontal 2-by-4 waler without wearing a safety belt. Although no direct evidence established where he stood when he fell, the judge inferred…
Fischbach & Moore, Incorporated
Direction for review vacated
The Commission vacated its direction for review in the Fischbach & Moore case by referring to Francisco Tower Service. The attached judge's decision involved an employee welding from outside a scaffold 18 feet above ground without a safety belt or lifeline, and welding zinc-bearing material without…
Abbott-Sommer, Inc.
Roofing citations mostly affirmed without merits review
Abbott-Sommer was a roofing subcontractor working on a flat roof in Totowa, New Jersey. The judge vacated an item alleging inadequate potable water but affirmed items involving head protection during slag hoisting, an enclosed debris chute, perimeter guarding, and fall-protection equipment for an…
Isseks Brothers, Inc.
Safety belts required for uncaged fixed ladders
Isseks Brothers sent employees to make emergency repairs to a rooftop water tank about eight floors above a New York City street. The employees climbed uncaged fixed ladders, including a steep ladder rising between 26 and 30 feet above the roof, without safety belts or other fall protection. The…
Theodore D. Bross Line Construction Corp.
Tower dismantling hazard affirmed
Theodore D. Bross Line Construction was dismantling 100-foot steel electrical transmission towers. Two employees remained about 60 feet above the ground while a crane and winch pulled over the tower's upper section. The section struck the remaining tower, causing one employee to fall and die and…
Otis Elevator Company
Safety-belt violation and $100 penalty affirmed
Two Otis elevator mechanics worked in an open elevator shaft while standing on a single unsecured plank about 20 feet above the next complete platform, without wearing safety belts. Otis had issued protective equipment, maintained a safety handbook, and held safety meetings, but its working foreman…
Steel Erectors, Inc.
Fall-protection citation vacated for insufficient proof
Steel Erectors employees straddled roof trusses and welded joists while wearing safety belts that were not tied off, and no safety nets were installed. OSHA alleged that the work was more than 25 feet above the ground, which would trigger the cited safety-net standard. The inspector did not measure…
C.E.C. Electrical Company
Fall-protection and electrical citations affirmed
C.E.C. Electrical employees worked around untagged deenergized circuits, exposed live parts, unprotected cables, and unsecured switchboxes. Another employee lay on a 24-inch-wide walkway suspended about 70 feet above the floor and leaned out to weld without guardrails, a safety belt, or a lifeline…
Kaywood Construction Company
Six final violations affirmed with $200 penalty
OSHA cited Kaywood Construction for posting and recordkeeping failures, a sagging perimeter rope, short ladder rails, and employees working without fall protection. The company's notice of contest challenged only the proposed penalties. The judge nevertheless reviewed the merits, vacated five…
United Engineers & Constructors, Inc.
Repeat rebar violation affirmed and two items vacated
At the Three Mile Island construction site, one employee stood untied on a crane girder about 225 feet above the floor while guiding another crane. Safety nets would have blocked the lift, and the Commission divided over whether a feasible safety-belt anchorage had been proved, leaving the…
Armor Elevator Company, Inc.
Elevator-shaft fall citation and $80 penalty affirmed
An Armor Elevator foreman worked on a four-by-eight-foot platform at the roof level of a 12-story elevator shaft. Openings on both sides were large enough for him to fall through, but he chose not to use an available safety belt because he believed it would restrict movement. The judge found that a…
General Bronze Architectural Products
Serious fall citation affirmed and penalty reduced
A General Bronze employee welded at the fifth-floor perimeter without a safety belt while a foreman was close enough to observe him. The Commission held that the pre-amendment personal-protective-equipment standard was enforceable here because the employee faced a fall of more than 25 feet and…
Edward M. Ream, Inc.
Flat-roof fall citation vacated
Employees installed roofing on a flat, solid-surfaced roof more than 100 feet above the ground without perimeter railings, nets, or personal fall protection. An employee had previously fallen from the roof and died. The judge held that the cited safety-net and personal-protective-equipment…
Isaacson Structural Steel Co.
Fall-protection citation vacated where cited methods were infeasible
Isaacson erected a structural-steel A-frame over water as part of a log deck at an Alaska paper mill. One employee worked at the top of the frame while two welders worked from a float scaffold, all more than 25 feet above the water. The Commission rejected the Secretary's late request to apply the…
Leon Marrano & Sons, Inc.
High-rise fall and head-protection citations affirmed
Leon Marrano was the concrete subcontractor on a nineteen-story apartment project in New York. Employees working with flying forms on the tenth floor moved around the forms by swinging partly over the building edge without safety belts or lifelines. The judge found that the company had not…
Island Steel & Welding, Ltd.
Safety-belt citation affirmed under protective-equipment rule
Island Steel assigned two employees to weld steel members while standing on top of a wall at heights of about sixteen to twenty-five feet. They had no safety belts or other fall-protection device, and the company superintendent knew they were working without belts. The Commission held that the…
Everhart Steel Construction Company, Inc.
Roof-edge and grounding citations affirmed
An Everhart Steel employee worked at the edge of a flat roof thirty-two feet above the ground, leaning over the side to pass siding and other material to workers on a scaffold. The roof had no perimeter guard or other protective device. The Commission held that the open-sided-floor standard applied…
Clasten Vaughn, dba Vaughn Roofing Co.
Roof-edge protection citation reinstated
Vaughn Roofing employees worked as close as 18 inches from the edge of an approximately 80-foot-high roof without safety belts, lanyards, or other fall protection. The Commission reinstated the serious personal-protective-equipment citation because the employer accepted that fall protection was…
Underhill Construction Corp. & DIC Concrete Corp, d/b/a DIC Underhill, A Joint Venture
Ninth-floor safety-belt citation affirmed
Employees of the DIC-Underhill joint venture stacked and rigged plywood at the unguarded edge of a building's ninth floor. As a load shifted during hoisting, one employee moved to avoid it, stepped off the edge, and fell to his death. The judge found that perimeter railings could not remain in…
Eichleay Corp.
Safety-belt violation affirmed and scaffold allegation vacated
Eichleay employees removed temporary boards from inside a vertical power-plant duct about 50 feet above its bottom. A boilermaker foreman and a union steward recognized that the task was hazardous but performed it without available safety belts or lifelines, and the foreman fell to his death. The…
Julius Nasso Concrete Corporation and Beach Concrete Company, Inc., a Joint Venture, d/b/a Nasso Beach Concrete
Citation vacated for lack of reasonable promptness
Nasso Beach Concrete was the concrete subcontractor on a high-rise apartment project. An employee installing perimeter guardrail protection on the sixteenth floor fell and died, and OSHA investigated the next day. The area director decided on December 26, 1972, to issue a citation concerning fall…
Carpenter Rigging and Contracting Corporation
Serious fall-protection violation reinstated with a $650 penalty
Carpenter Rigging was a subcontractor constructing an automated container warehouse at John F. Kennedy Airport. Two employees repositioned planking while standing on eight-inch girders about 21 feet above a concrete floor without safety belts or lanyards, and one employee fell and died. The…
Hoffman Construction Co.
Fall-protection violation affirmed, scaffold item vacated
Hoffman Construction employees installing concrete forms at a nuclear power project worked about 40 to 50 feet above the ground while wearing safety belts but not tying off their lanyards. The Commission found that most of the workers were stationary, could feasibly tie off, and faced a serious…
Chicago Bridge and Iron Company
Fall-protection and scaffold items affirmed
Two employees worked 19 and 29 feet above ground on penetration tubes and unsecured planks without tying off, with exposed reinforcing steel below. The Commission affirmed the serious personal-protective-equipment violation and an increased $850 penalty because supervisors could have discovered the…
Clarence Martin, d/b/a Martin Masonry Company
Penalties reduced for small masonry contractor
Martin Masonry Company was completing a penthouse on the roof of a six-story building in Oakland, California. The company conceded violations involving an employee working near the roof edge without a safety belt, a masonry-saw operator without goggles, makeshift fasteners on a material hoist, and…
American Bridge, Division of U.S. Steel Corporation
Tie-off citation vacated under greater-hazard defense
American Bridge employees connected steel beams while moving along roof trusses more than 60 feet above the ground. They wore safety belts but did not tie off while traversing or climbing the trusses, and OSHA cited the company under the personal protective equipment standard with a proposed $650…
Chicago Bridge & Iron Co.
Safety-belt citation vacated for lack of proof
Chicago Bridge & Iron erected steel plate structures and was installing a water tank when an employee fell from an elevation. OSHA cited the company under 29 C.F.R. § 1926.28(a) for allegedly exposing an employee to a fall without appropriate personal protective equipment. The judge found a…
Industrial Steel Erectors, Inc.
Tie-off citation vacated because compliance increased danger
Industrial Steel Erectors was dismantling a steel structure while two experienced employees removed the last bolts and pins holding a truss 30 to 35 feet above ground. The workers normally used a protected cage and lanyards, but refused to tie off for the final release because the truss could…
Genco, Inc.
Construction citation vacated after inspection violations
OSHA issued Genco a 13-item non-serious citation after inspecting its construction work at Honolulu International Airport. The judge vacated the citation because the compliance officer began the inspection before presenting credentials to the owner, operator, or agent in charge as required by the…
Automatic Elevator Corporation
Elevator-shaft scaffold violation classified as serious
An Automatic Elevator foreman worked in an elevator shaft on a platform made from two two-by-four boards about 20 feet above a concrete floor. The platform lacked required guardrails and overhead protection, and open shaft entrances lacked toeboards; the foreman also wore a bump cap instead of…
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.