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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Offshore Shipbuilding, Inc.
Confined-space training and two failure-to-abate items affirmed
Offshore Shipbuilding was repairing a ferry at its Florida shipyard after agreeing in an earlier settlement to correct cited safety violations. The Commission affirmed a repeated training violation because a newly hired welder entered a ballast tank without confined or enclosed-space training; the…
Kaspar Wire Works, Inc.
Commission upholds most willful recordkeeping violations but vacates unsupported items
Kaspar Wire Works manufactured formed wire products at a Shiner, Texas facility with roughly 850 to 900 employees. After a 1990 inspection, OSHA cited more than 400 alleged violations and proposed $1,236,000 in penalties; the ALJ affirmed most items and assessed $257,700. The Commission found that…
Savenok Construction, Inc. (EZ)
Scaffold violation affirmed after the company skipped its hearing
Savenok Construction was a construction company working on a motel in Troy, Illinois. During a January 2000 inspection, OSHA found a roughly 60-foot tubular welded scaffold, over 30 feet tall, tied to the building by only a single thin metal strap nailed to the wall. OSHA issued one serious…
Titan Tire Corporation of Natchez (EZ)
Electrical-classification violation affirmed after a carbon black dust flash fire
Titan Tire Corporation of Natchez made tires in Natchez, Mississippi. On October 4, 1999, a large enclosed rubber mixer (a Banbury mixer) belched a cloud of carbon black dust into the work area. The dust ignited in a flash fire that seriously burned two employees. OSHA cited Titan under the…
Baker Support Services, Inc.
Untimely contest leaves lead citation final
Baker Support Services operated and maintained equipment at a Navy radio transmitter facility in Guam. OSHA issued a serious citation alleging that Baker had not made the initial determination required by the lead standard, with a proposed penalty of $2,000. Baker filed its notice of contest after…
Freeze Technology International, Inc.
Mixed ruling after nitrogen asphyxiation at pipeline freeze site
Freeze Technology used liquid nitrogen to form ice plugs in an underground water pipeline so Enerpipe could perform hydrostatic testing at a remote Oklahoma ranch. Two night-shift workers were found dead inside the freeze excavation after nitrogen gas displaced the oxygen. The judge affirmed…
Hollywood Pool & Spa
Scaffold violations grouped with a $1,500 penalty
Hollywood Pool & Spa maintained swimming pools and was constructing its own building in Vestavia Hills, Alabama. OSHA cited five serious scaffold conditions involving incomplete planking, inadequate support, improper access, lack of a competent-person inspection, and missing fall protection. The…
Von Bodkin, d/b/a Eclipse Coating Systems
Seven-month-late contest dismissed
OSHA issued Eclipse Coating Systems a serious fall-protection citation after inspecting an Idaho worksite. An agent of the company signed for the citation on July 27, 1999, and the document twice explained that any contest had to be filed within 15 working days. Eclipse did not submit a notice of…
Maersk Stevedoring Co.
Unguarded hatch violation affirmed, penalty cut
Maersk Stevedoring performed longshoring work aboard the Maersk San Antonio in Long Beach, California. An OSHA inspector saw a walking boss without fall protection near the edge of an open hatch where a fall of 16 to 20 feet was possible. The judge rejected Maersk's argument that OSHA had withdrawn…
Tri-State Steel Construction Company, Inc.
$23,400 EAJA award granted on remand
Tri-State sought attorney fees and expenses after prevailing on hazard-communication and highway traffic-control citation items from a bridge rehabilitation project. The Sixth Circuit had reversed an earlier ruling that Tri-State was ineligible under the Equal Access to Justice Act merely because…
Dillingham Construction Pacific Basin LTD
Precast collapse citation reduced to serious
Dillingham Construction was the prime contractor for an addition to the Micronesia Mall in Guam. Precast concrete beams that had been placed without completing temporary welds collapsed while employees worked above and below them, fatally injuring an employee of a subcontractor. The judge found…
B & B Plumbing, Inc.
Trench violations reduced from willful to serious
B & B Plumbing was installing sanitation plumbing at a school on the White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona. Employees worked in a trench with vertical sides that reached about eight feet deep and had no protective system or adequate means of egress; an employee died in a cave-in. The judge…
General Property Services, Inc. a/k/a GPS Roofing Services
Training items affirmed, fall-protection item vacated
General Property Services contracted to replace deteriorated sections of a warehouse roof in Forest Park, Georgia. The judge found that GPS was the employer of the roofing crew because its officers supervised and inspected the work, it held crew leaders out as GPS officers, and it retained…
Dayton Hudson Corp.
Roofing and acetone violations affirmed with reduced penalties
Dayton Hudson employees performed roofing work on a flat roof in West Allis, Wisconsin, about 28 feet above the next level. The company admitted that employees did not use available harnesses and that its warning-line system was incomplete, too loose, too close to the roof edge, and missing around…
Black Construction Corp
Trench egress affirmed, loose-soil item vacated
Black Construction employees installed formwork beside sewer lines in a trench at Camp Watkins Road in Guam. An inspector measured the excavation at about six feet deep and saw two employees inside without a ladder or other safe means of egress. The judge credited the inspector's unrebutted…
N & N Contractors, Inc.
Fall-protection violation affirmed, training item vacated
N & N Contractors erected precast exterior panels on a twelve-story building in Washington, D.C. An employee crossed beneath a horizontal lifeline without tying off, stumbled near an unprotected edge, and fell more than 115 feet to his death. The Commission held that the fall-protection standard…
Branham Sign Company
Fall violations reduced from willful to serious
Branham Sign Company manufactured, serviced, and erected signs. A supervisor worked from an aerial-lift basket and on a sign about 64 feet above the ground without a tied-off safety harness. The Commission affirmed violations of both fall-protection standards but held that the Secretary had not…
Delta T Construction Co., Inc.
Roof-cover and training-record violations affirmed
Delta T Construction was an insulation contractor working on a cold-storage warehouse roof. A temporary employee removed an unsecured roof-hole cover while collecting scrap, stepped into the opening, and fell 31 feet in a fatal accident. The judge held that Delta controlled the work environment and…
A. Hansen Masonry, Inc.
Repeat scaffold violation affirmed, forklift item vacated
A. Hansen Masonry performed construction work in San Antonio, Texas. OSHA observed an employee making repeated trips on a twelve-foot scaffold whose southwest corner lacked guardrails, and the employee used no other fall protection. The judge found employer knowledge because the foreman knew the…
John B. Coffman, d/b/a Southeast Industrial Painting
Penalties cut for a small painting contractor who admitted the violations
John B. Coffman ran Southeast Industrial Painting, a small tank painting and renovation business in Florida. OSHA inspected a jobsite in Orange Park, Florida in August 1997 and issued five citations spread across two dockets. Coffman first contested the citations, but the cases were held while a…
AIA Environmental
Unsecured-cylinder item affirmed, two items vacated
AIA Environmental performed interior demolition at an office building in Connecticut. OSHA found unsecured oxygen and acetylene cylinders, cited their close placement, and alleged that AIA did not make its written hazard-communication program available upon request. The judge affirmed the…
Great Lakes Packaging Corp.
Annual-audiogram violation made willful and penalty doubled
Great Lakes Packaging made cardboard packaging and displays at a Germantown, Wisconsin facility. Its workers' compensation insurer repeatedly warned that measured noise levels triggered OSHA hearing-conservation requirements, including baseline and annual audiograms. Great Lakes gave audiograms at…
Calhar Construction Inc.
Late contest remains dismissed
CalHar Construction employed field construction workers and a four-person administrative staff in Texas. After a fatal accident, OSHA issued two serious citation items with proposed penalties totaling $3,375. An office employee called OSHA because she found the citation confusing, left a message…
Montgomery Security Doors & Ornamental Iron, Inc.
Late contest relief denied
Montgomery Security Doors & Ornamental Iron was a small ornamental-iron manufacturer and installer in Alabama. OSHA issued five serious citation items with proposed penalties totaling $5,150, but the company mailed its notice of contest nine days after the deadline. The company said its vice…
Seven Seventeen HBE Colorado Corporation d/b/a/ Antler's Adam's Mark
Late refund request denied
Seven Seventeen HBE Colorado Corporation operated the Antler's Adam's Mark hotel in Colorado Springs. The company corrected the cited conditions and paid the full $9,000 penalty without filing a timely contest, then later asked for a refund. It argued that it had not operated the hotel at the time…
Mac Construction
Fall-protection case settled for $1,100
Mac Construction performed construction work in Wisconsin. OSHA cited the company for inadequate jobsite inspections, insufficient safety training, employees working more than 25 feet above a lower surface without fall protection, and employees using aerial lifts without personal fall-arrest…
Corna/Kokosing Construction Co., Inc.
Brief open scaffold gate violated fall rule
Corna/Kokosing Construction worked on a middle-school construction project in Ohio. Two employees unloaded materials from a forklift pallet onto a scaffold about 28 feet above the ground. After the pallet was removed, a five-foot gate remained open for several seconds while the employees used…
American Tower, LLC
Oral disagreement did not preserve contest rights
American Tower had erected a radio tower for the Township of Verona, New Jersey. After an OSHA inspection prompted by an injury complaint, the company received a citation alleging serious violations. Its owner orally disagreed with the citation and later said he believed he had contested it, but no…
Boh Brothers Construction Co., L.L.C.
Unbalanced pipe lift violations affirmed
Boh Brothers was a heavy-construction contractor building a power plant in Alabama. A crew lifted six steel pipes weighing about 12,000 pounds in an unbalanced basket hitch, and the foreman approached and tried to guide the suspended load by hand. Pipes shifted, and the load crushed the foreman…
FPC, Inc., and its successors
Unguarded balcony violation affirmed
FPC was the general contractor constructing an apartment complex in Houston. OSHA observed upper-floor balconies without guardrails and an employee clearing trash from a second-floor balcony without other fall protection. FPC disputed that any employee worked near the edge and said trash was…
RNC, Inc.
Companion-case stipulation yields split result
OSHA cited RNC, Inc. after investigating a workplace fatality. RNC and the Secretary stipulated that the outcome of the related Summit Habitats, Inc. case would control RNC's citation. After deciding the companion case, the judge applied that result to RNC. Citation Item 1 was vacated, while Items…
Dakota Underground, Inc.
Water-accumulation item remanded after court ruling
Dakota Underground performed excavation work in Fargo, North Dakota. The administrative law judge had affirmed willful violations involving trench egress, accumulated water, and cave-in protection, while vacating a competent-person inspection item. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the Commission's final…
Cleveland Steel Container Corp.
Challenge to settlement withdrawn
OSHA inspected Cleveland Steel Container's Illinois facility and issued a citation and proposed penalty. The company and OSHA then signed an informal settlement agreement resolving the citation. Cleveland Steel Container soon sought to rescind the agreement and filed a notice of contest, leading to…
Superior Rigging & Erecting Co.
Commission affirms lifeline item and remands competing fall-protection charges
Superior Rigging was installing elevator sill angles in a 24-story office building in Montgomery, Alabama when a foreman fell down an elevator shaft. The Commission held that installing the nonstructural sill angles was not steel erection work covered by OSHA's temporary stay of the Subpart M…
Ben Shepherd dba Happy Candy Co.
Housekeeping and electrical violations affirmed against an absent cotton candy maker
Ben Shepherd ran Happy Candy Co., a small cotton candy production business in Secor, Illinois. After an OSHA complaint inspection, OSHA issued two citations covering a dirty production area and a series of electrical hazards, plus a lack of protective clothing. Shepherd contested the citations but…
Summit Habitats, Inc.
Floor-cover violations affirmed, training item vacated after a fatal fall
Summit Habitats was a Colorado home builder. During construction of a custom home in December 1998, a two foot by three foot opening in the main floor was covered with a stapled plastic sheet to hold heat in the basement. The next day a subcontractor's employee walked between the wall studs…
Homes by Bill Simms, Inc.
All seven items vacated because the builder did not control its subcontractors
Homes by Bill Simms was a residential general contractor in Springboro, Ohio, that built custom homes using subcontractors. During an August 1999 inspection of three of its home sites, OSHA saw subcontractor employees committing scaffold and fall protection violations and issued Simms a seven-item…
LeTourneau, Inc., and its successors
Deck-opening violations vacated for lack of employer knowledge after a fatal fall
LeTourneau built ships at Sabine Pass, Texas, including a Gorilla V jack-up offshore oil rig. In September 1998, a LeTourneau engineer, Paul Dew, fell about 90 feet to his death from an unguarded derrick platform while inspecting the area for upcoming piping work. OSHA cited LeTourneau for two…
Kerns Brothers Tree Service
Hard-hat citation vacated because employer knowledge was not proven
Kerns Brothers Tree Service was cited after a three-person tree-trimming crew leader was fatally struck by a falling section of tree while none of the crew members wore hard hats. The hard-hat rule applied, and the crew leader counted as a supervisor because he directed the work and could order…
Champion Environmental Services, Inc.
Settlement approved, ending a contested construction citation
Champion Environmental Services was cited after OSHA inspected one of its construction work sites. The serious citation alleged two violations of the construction standard at 29 C.F.R. § 1926.1101. Champion contested, and the case was set for an E-Z Trial in Chicago. At the December 1999 hearing…
Reliable Roofing, Inc.
Settlement approved on five construction-safety items
Reliable Roofing contested a serious citation issued after OSHA inspected one of its construction worksites. The citation alleged five electrical, ladder, and training violations, and the case was assigned to the Commission's E-Z Trial procedure. The parties reached a written settlement just before…
Eagle Food Centers, Inc.
Forklift-horn citation vacated because the Secretary did not prove vision was obstructed
Eagle Food Centers ran a large food distribution warehouse in Milan, Illinois. In January 1998 a pallet jack operator was struck and killed by a highlift when the two vehicles met at an automatic plastic door between the freezer department and the loading dock. OSHA cited Eagle under the…
Quinn & Kwolek, Inc.
Citation affirmed after the employer ignored discovery orders
Quinn & Kwolek did not answer the Secretary's interrogatories, document requests, or requests for admission by the required deadline. It then failed to comply with Judge G. Marvin Bober's order compelling discovery and offered no explanation. Finding a pattern of disregard for the proceeding, the…
Quad Manufacturing Corp.
Failure-to-abate case settled for $6,000 over 24 months
Quad Manufacturing operated a Wisconsin machine shop where an OSHA follow-up inspection found chain slings without readable identification, missing sling-inspection records, and improperly labeled chemical containers. The proposed failure-to-abate penalties totaled $60,000, while Quad still owed…
New Age International
Scaffold violations affirmed with reduced penalties totaling $825
New Age International performed masonry and stucco work at a San Antonio U-Haul project where two workers used an incompletely planked rolling scaffold without proper access or full guardrails. New Age argued that the workers belonged to an independent subcontractor, but Judge Stanley M. Schwartz…
Montana Power Company
Roof-edge violation affirmed with penalty reduced to $1,000
Montana Power was upgrading electrical service at a Missoula motel when an employee worked on the roof about 22 feet above the ground without a lanyard, guardrail, or safety net. The company argued that working from its aerial-lift basket was infeasible because the motel's weather heads faced…
Northwest Conduit Corp.
Dismissal vacated so the citation can be heard on its merits
Northwest Conduit filed its notice contesting an OSHA citation one day late, but an ALJ granted relief from the resulting final order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). The Secretary initially refused to file a complaint, and the judge dismissed the citation, but the Commission later…
O'Brien Concrete Pumping, Inc.
Hopper training and machine-guarding violations affirmed
O'Brien Concrete Pumping operated trucks with rotating auger blades inside concrete hoppers, and one operator was fatally crushed by the blades after a concrete pour. The company had removed bolts securing the heavy hopper grate so operators could raise it while cleaning and repositioning the…
Eagle Boats, Inc.
Fourth abatement-extension request denied for lack of good faith
Eagle Boats sought a fourth extension of the deadline to correct violations that had become final in 1998 and later produced $66,000 in failure-to-abate penalties. The company repeatedly said a new facility was being built, but at the hearing it offered only photographs of an empty field…
Otis Elevator, Inc.
Elevator-platform fall violation reduced from repeated to serious
Four Otis Elevator employees, including the Montana territory manager, rode an unguarded elevator platform at a hotel project without tying off, exposing them to a fall of as much as 112 feet. Otis had detailed fall-protection rules, training, audits, and progressive discipline, but all four…
30 River Court East Construction Corp.
Fall citation vacated because OSHA did not identify the worker's employer
OSHA observed a worker near the open perimeter of the 27th floor of a Jersey City high-rise without fall protection and cited the general contractor, 30 River Court East Construction. The compliance officer believed the worker was installing winter-protection plastic, work performed by the…
Accu-Rate Roofing Co.
Four roofing safety items affirmed for a $1,200 penalty
OSHA observed an Accu-Rate Roofing employee shingling a steep roof about 13 feet above the ground without fall protection. The access ladder was not tied off, did not extend three feet above the roof edge, and left the employee without a secure handhold when stepping onto the roof. The employee…
MEI Holdings, Inc. d/b/a Martin Electronics, Inc.
DOD contract does not preempt OSHA safety rules
MEI manufactured explosives and pyrotechnic devices under a Defense Department contract at its Perry, Florida plant. After a fire in a small wooden production building killed two employees and severely burned another, OSHA cited fire, exit, personal-protective-equipment, training, and…
L & D Construction
Late contest excused and citation vacated because the owner had no employees
OSHA cited L & D Construction after seeing two people working without fall protection on a pitched roof at a volunteer renovation project in Yonkers, New York. The notice of contest was filed months after the 15-working-day deadline because L & D's owner relied on the building owner, who repeatedly…
Moniger Excavating, Inc.
Trench protection and ladder items vacated for lack of employee exposure
OSHA cited Moniger Excavating after finding a narrow trench about 4.5 to 5.5 feet deep with vertical walls, no protective system, and no nearby ladder. No employee was inside the trench during the inspection, and the company explained that its force-main sewer pipe was assembled and measured from…
Russell B. Le Frois Builder, Inc.
Citation vacated after Secretary declined to file complaint
The Commission remanded Russell B. Le Frois Builder's case for further proceedings. Chief Judge Irving Sommer then ordered the Secretary of Labor to file a complaint within twenty days. The Secretary declined to do so, and the judge vacated the May 14, 1998 citation in its entirety.
Lumex Medical Products, Inc.
Failure-to-abate notice dismissed because the presses were never cited
Lumex settled an earlier power-press case covering two cited presses and separately agreed to a correction schedule for 57 additional presses. After a reinspection, OSHA issued a $178,500 failure-to-abate notice for 12 of the additional presses. The Commission held that the settlement did not amend…
Montgomery KONE, Inc. and Parsons Brinckerhoff Construction Services, Inc.
Elevator pit held to be a confined space
Montgomery KONE employees were modernizing a hydraulic freight elevator at a Philadelphia postal facility when a welding arc ignited flammable vapors in the elevator pit, causing an explosion that injured two workers. The vapors came from primer and cement used to assemble a 70-foot PVC liner and…
Hi-Tech Builders, Inc.
Willful steel-erection fall violations affirmed for $60,000
Hi-Tech Builders erected structural steel at the Guam International Airport while employees repeatedly worked without tying off and without temporary floors or nets below them. OSHA videotaped the conduct from a public parking lot, and Judge Nancy J. Spies rejected Hi-Tech's challenge because the…
Exterior Insulation & Stucco, Inc.
Citations affirmed after incomplete discovery responses
Exterior Insulation & Stucco did not answer the Secretary's discovery requests until a judge ordered it to do so. Its eventual responses omitted witnesses, financial information, and the factual basis for its denials, and repeatedly promised information later instead of providing it. Chief Judge…
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.