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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Aubrey-National, Inc.
Case dismissed after Secretary withdrew citation
Aubrey-National, Inc. operated a plastic manufacturing facility where an employee was electrocuted after falling into exposed conductors in a regrinding machine's electrical control box. OSHA cited the company for failing to guard live electrical parts with an approved enclosure. The administrative…
Brickfield Builders, Inc.
Scaffold-foundation citation vacated
Brickfield Builders, Inc. was the masonry contractor for a school addition in Galena Park, Texas. OSHA alleged that the foundation of the south-side scaffold was unstable because it shared part of a haphazard anchorage supporting a west-side scaffold. The administrative law judge credited the…
Phoenix Roofing Inc.
Unguarded translucent skylight violation affirmed
Phoenix Roofing Inc. was reroofing a Texas warehouse when an employee fell through an unguarded skylight made of translucent material and died. The Commission held that the term “skylight opening” in the cited standard includes an intact skylight when its material cannot protect a worker from…
Residential Contracting, Inc.
Late notice of contest dismissed
OSHA issued Residential Contracting, Inc. a serious citation and proposed penalty. After certified mail sent to the company president's residence was returned unclaimed, a compliance officer delivered the documents to the company's designated mail-receiving location with the president's approval…
Voodoo Constr. Corp.
Broken-fax excuse did not save late contest
OSHA issued Voodoo Construction Corporation serious and repeat citations that the company received on November 29, 1993. The company said it faxed the documents to its attorney, but his fax machine malfunctioned and neither the company nor counsel followed up in time to file a contest. The judge…
R.G. Friday Masonry, Inc.
Repeated guardrail violations affirmed, penalties reduced
R.G. Friday Masonry was the masonry subcontractor at two Pittsburgh construction sites where employees worked on tubular welded-frame scaffolds with missing or inadequate guardrails. The company argued that guardrail installation had to be delayed for orderly work flow and material handling, but…
Ruhlin Co.
EAJA expense award reduced to $120.08
Ruhlin Company sought fees and expenses under the Equal Access to Justice Act after prevailing on two construction citation items. The Commission held that reasonable and necessary attorney travel expenses customarily charged to a client are recoverable, so it allowed $57.04 for mileage and…
L & M Lignos Enterprises
Safety-training violation affirmed, penalty reduced to $750
L & M Lignos Enterprises was a bridge painting and sandblasting firm working beneath a bridge in Cleveland, Ohio. Employee Emmanuel Kleoudis fell from a suspended scaffold onto a barge and later died from his injuries. Although the company told employees to use safety belts and lifelines above 10…
Woronoffs Furniture
Untimely contest dismissed, citations affirmed
Woronoffs Furniture received two OSHA citations and proposed penalties on April 4, 1994, making its notice of contest due by April 25. The company claimed it had mailed an April 11 letter requesting both an informal conference and a contest of the penalties, but OSHA had no record of receiving it…
Donald W. Thompson, Inc.
Three serious items affirmed, $275 assessed
Donald W. Thompson, Inc. contested two OSHA citations and went to a hearing. Before evidence was taken, the Secretary withdrew Item 1 of the serious citation. The judge affirmed the three remaining serious items, finding that unguarded rebar and contact with a radial-saw blade could cause serious…
Jaxon Industrial Services, Inc.
EAJA fee request denied
Jaxon Industrial Services was cleaning a nonhazardous black-liquor spill at a Jacksonville paper mill when OSHA cited it for lacking an emergency response plan. The original hazardous-waste emergency-response allegation was dismissed, and the alternative emergency-action-plan citation was later…
EBAA Iron, Inc.
Silica overexposure and control citations vacated
EBAA Iron operated a foundry in Cordele, Georgia, where OSHA sampled the breathing zone of an inner-diameter grinder operator and calculated exposure above the limit for respirable crystalline silica. EBAA showed that the grinding wheel contained 40 percent zirconium oxide and that OSHA's own…
Waterbury Style, Inc.
Kick-press violation reclassified as nonserious, $750 assessed
Waterbury Style used a foot-operated kick press to assemble belt buckles. The operator needed both hands during the process and at times placed fingers in, or within a few inches of, the press's point of operation. The judge found the guarding violation clear because the standard requires a device…
ASARCO, Inc.
Medical-removal benefit violation affirmed, $2,125 assessed
ASARCO operated a primary lead refinery in Omaha, Nebraska. Maintenance welder Michael Dougherty was medically removed to lower-exposure areas and then was not considered for an open mason position solely because that job involved work above OSHA's lead action level. The judge held that Dougherty's…
Sommer Builders, Inc.
Scaffold item affirmed as willful, penalty reduced to $7,500
Sommer Builders performed masonry work from tubular welded-frame scaffolds at a Boise construction project. Employees faced an interior fall through window openings guarded only by loose rebar and exterior falls from unguarded outrigger platforms, including potential falls of about 38 feet. The…
Texas A.C.A., Inc.
Commission affirms vacatur of all scaffold citations because a diligent contractor did not know of conditions other trades kept disturbing
Texas A.C.A., Inc. was the plastering contractor on a four-story hospital construction project in Bedford, Texas. Texas erected the tubular welded frame scaffolding around the building, but other contractors used it too and frequently moved or removed the planks without telling Texas, so Texas had…
Pulaski Construction, Inc.
Late contest dismissed, citation affirmed
Pulaski Construction received an OSHA citation on May 14, 1993, making its written notice of contest due by June 4. Its contest letter was dated June 3 but postmarked June 11 and received by OSHA on June 15. The company president and a later letter from his clerk asserted that the notice had been…
Dynamic Painting Corp.
Three fall and water-safety items vacated, ring-buoy item affirmed
Dynamic Painting employees worked on a bridge and suspended scaffold above water at a Bay Shore, New York, site. The judge vacated the fall-protection item because the compliance officer gave inconsistent testimony about when the photographs were taken, where the employee was located, and whether…
Monfort of Colorado - Greeley Lamb
Settlement approved for $37,500
Monfort of Colorado - Greeley Lamb and the Secretary resolved citations arising from an OSHA inspection through a settlement approved by the Commission. The Secretary reclassified seven emergency-response and hazard-communication items from repeated to serious, and Monfort withdrew its contest to…
Noble Steel, Inc.
Rebar and access violations affirmed, $2,250 assessed
Noble Steel employees worked inside a roughly 10-foot-deep chlorine filter basin at an Oklahoma water-treatment project. Vertical reinforcing steel protruded from the floor without effective impalement protection, and employees entered and left by climbing rebar held by wire ties instead of using a…
Classic Homes Div. of Elite, Inc.
Fall-protection items affirmed, penalties reduced to $1,600
Classic Homes was the general contractor for a house under construction in Colorado Springs. A roofing subcontractor's employees worked on a 17-foot-high roof without the required catch platform and near second-floor wall openings without adequate guardrails. Classic Homes argued that it did not…
Computer Sciences Raytheon
Two launch-platform items vacated, ramp item affirmed
Computer Sciences Raytheon employees opened camera boxes on Kennedy Space Center's mobile launch platform after space shuttle launches. The judge found that workers approached unguarded blast holes and perimeter edges before tying off, but she vacated those two items under the multi-employer…
Bionetics Corp.
Three launch-platform fall items affirmed, $2,750 assessed
Bionetics employees retrieved film from camera boxes on a mobile launch platform at Kennedy Space Center after space shuttle launches. During two launches, blast-hole and perimeter guardrails had been removed, the deck was wet and windy, and employees approached cameras within a few feet of…
E.C.C.O. III Enterprises, Inc.
EAJA application denied
E.C.C.O. III Enterprises sought attorney fees and expenses after an earlier decision affirmed all five contested citation items but reduced three classifications from willful to serious. The judge first found the application deficient because the company did not provide the required detailed…
Clarence Wall and Ceiling, Inc.
Tool and platform violations affirmed, $2,475 assessed
Clarence Wall and Ceiling was erecting metal roof framing at a New York construction site when OSHA found an angle grinder without its designed guard, an excessively worn grinding wheel, and an aerial work platform without a building-side guardrail. The judge affirmed the grinder-guard item because…
Lawrence B. Wohl, Inc.
Mobile-scaffold penalties increased to $1,000
Lawrence B. Wohl employees installed lathing and sprayed fireproofing from small mobile scaffolds at a Yonkers waste-transfer-station project. One scaffold had unlocked casters and exposed an employee to a four-foot fall, while another lacked a midrail and toeboard and exposed two employees to a…
Merchant's Masonry, Inc.
Scaffold and forklift penalties increased to $8,400
Merchant's Masonry employees worked on an unguarded 18-foot scaffold, and the company also used a forklift without a seatbelt or working horn and left it running with raised forks. The willful scaffold classification was not disputed on review, but the Commission raised its penalty from $500 to…
E & R Erectors, Inc.
Serious fall-protection violation affirmed, penalty reduced to $1,500
E & R Erectors was the structural-steel subcontractor for a Philadelphia warehouse project where employees laid roof decking roughly 30 feet above the ground without safety belts or nets. Employee Raymond Connors fell from the roof structure and suffered serious injuries. Although OSHA had not…
Trinity Industries, Inc.
$6,000 assessed for willful noise-program violations
The Eleventh Circuit remanded this case solely for the Commission to set penalties after holding that Trinity Industries' two noise-program violations were willful. One item involved failing to establish baseline and annual audiograms for covered employees, and the other involved failing to…
Hirsch Electric Company
Energized-wiring item affirmed, penalty reduced to $1,000
Hirsch Electric installed energized wiring for operating rooms under construction at Hillcrest Hospital in Ohio. A flexible conduit containing 270-volt lines hung into the area where another contractor's employees were installing metal duct diffusers, and one worker received an electrical shock…
Maher Terminals, Inc.
Two forklift-safety violations affirmed serious after a fatal fall, $7,650
Maher Terminals operates a marine terminal at Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, loading and unloading ocean-going ships. On November 15, 1992, a gang foreman was standing on the raised blades of a forklift to remove wooden boards from a shipping flat when a blade separated from the truck; he fell about…
Pennsylvania Metallurgical, Inc.
Withdrawn citation items set aside
Pennsylvania Metallurgical and the Secretary had previously resolved parts of two related dockets through an administrative law judge's consent order. The Secretary later filed a notice withdrawing citation items in the consolidated case. The Commission acknowledged the withdrawal and set aside the…
Pride Petroleum Services
Review defaulted, $2,000 monitoring item became final
Pride Petroleum filed for Commission review after a judge decided respiratory-protection items arising from work at a Texas oil well. Commission rules required Pride to file a brief or a written notice relying on its petition within 40 days, but it did neither, did not answer the Secretary's…
Atlantic Battery Company, Inc.
Mixed lead, hazard-communication, fire-safety, and posting rulings reduced penalties to $7,240
Atlantic Battery manufactured and sold batteries at a small Massachusetts plant where OSHA cited lead exposure, medical removal, housekeeping, hazard communication, fire safety, eyewash, respiratory protection, and posting conditions. The Commission affirmed willful violations for allowing a…
Professional Masonry, Inc.
Settlement fixed penalties at $1,600
An administrative law judge dismissed Professional Masonry's notice of contest after the company did not answer the complaint or respond to a show-cause order. After review was directed, the parties filed a stipulation resolving all outstanding issues. The company represented that all cited…
Centex-Rooney Construction Co.
Repeated fall-protection violations affirmed with $25,000 in penalties
Centex-Rooney was the general contractor for construction of two-story hotel buildings at a Florida resort. OSHA cited one defective ground-fault circuit interrupter, uncovered pipe-chase openings, and inadequate perimeter guardrails. The Commission vacated the electrical item because regular…
C. Abbonizio Contractors, Inc.
Excavation contractor held responsible for trench created by its workers
C. Abbonizio Contractors supplied two workers and a backhoe to dig an improperly sloped and unshored trench at a New Jersey aquarium project. The company argued that the construction manager employed or controlled the workers for that task. The Commission held that Abbonizio remained the employer…
Armstrong Steel Erectors, Inc.
Bridge steel-erection fall-protection violation affirmed serious, $2,500
Armstrong Steel Erectors was erecting steel on an I-71 bridge overpass in Cleveland, Ohio, when OSHA inspected in August 1993 and cited it for a serious fall-protection violation. Compliance officers videotaped ironworkers moving across unguarded girders more than 25 feet up without using the…
Turner Construction Company
Defective-ladder citation vacated on summary judgment
Turner Construction was the general contractor at a worksite in Akron, Ohio. After a September 1993 inspection, OSHA cited two serious items, then dropped the first and pursued only a claim that Turner used a portable wood ladder with a structural defect (a cracked step) in violation of 29 C.F.R. §…
Guarco Construction Company
Repeat trench cave-in citation affirmed $7,000
Guarco Construction, a two-person company acting as general contractor, was installing a sewer line at a restaurant in East Granby, Connecticut. Two off-duty OSHA officers driving past noticed an unshored, unsloped trench and stopped to inspect. They measured the trench at about 5 feet 4 inches to…
Anthony Crane Rental, Inc.
Crane inspection and maintenance violations affirmed after court remand
Anthony Crane Rental leased a crane whose boom later collapsed at an airport construction project, killing another contractor's employee. After a court remand, the issue was whether Anthony Crane Rental's own employees had been exposed to the conditions involving missing annual-inspection records…
Siravo Contracting, Inc.
Three scaffold and masonry items affirmed, two vacated, $975
Siravo Contracting was doing masonry work on a Caldor department store construction site in Philadelphia when OSHA inspected in December 1992 after a referral about an overloaded, unguarded scaffold. The agency issued five serious items: too much block stored on the scaffold, an untapered stack of…
Davey Tree Expert Company
General duty clause electrocution citation vacated on unpreventable-misconduct defense
Davey Tree Expert Company trims trees around power lines for utilities. On April 14, 1993, one of its working foremen was fatally electrocuted in Winchester, New Hampshire when he contacted an energized primary wire from an aerial-lift bucket while trimming under a contract with Public Service of…
G. Pugni & Son, Inc.
Demolition head-protection and engineering-survey items affirmed, $3,500
G. Pugni & Son was a demolition and rehabilitation subcontractor at the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington, New York. On August 18, 1993, a suspended concrete and plaster ceiling collapsed onto two workers who were tearing it down, and OSHA inspected after a news-media referral. The agency issued…
Marino Midwest, Inc.
Crane limit-switch violation affirmed, penalty cut to $2,000
Marino Midwest, an underground construction contractor, used a Bucyrus-Erie crawler crane to hoist loads to workers at the bottom of a shaft in Evanston, Illinois. OSHA cited the company because the crane lacked a limit switch to prevent the load from overtraveling past the boom tip, in violation…
Broshear Contractors, Inc.
Trench egress and cave-in protection violations affirmed
Broshear Contractors excavated a trench along a public road in Ohio to install a water line. The Commission rejected the company's Fourth Amendment challenge because the compliance officer observed the open trench and employees from a public road, where the company had no reasonable expectation of…
Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co.
Fall protection required during elevated training
Cleveland Electric Illuminating required experienced electrical installers in a training program to cross narrow steel bridge structures as high as 36 feet without fall protection. The utility argued that unprotected exposure to height was psychologically necessary to prepare employees for…
New England Industrial Roofing Co.
Roof perimeter-guarding item affirmed serious $750, warning-line item vacated
New England Industrial Roofing was removing an old built-up roof and installing a new one on a two-story building when an OSHA officer inspected in December 1992 and cited two serious fall-protection violations: no motion-stopping-safety (guardrail) system at the roof edge, and no warning lines…
Pyramid Masonry Contractors, Inc.
Scaffold-pinning citation vacated, uplift not proven
Pyramid Masonry Contractors was laying concrete block and brick from tubular welded frame scaffolds at the Galleria project in Atlanta, Georgia. After an OSHA inspection, the Secretary dropped one citation and part of another, leaving a single item: that the scaffold panels were not pinned together…
Zantec Development Co., Inc.
Signed settlement enforced, notice of contest dismissed
Zantec Development received four OSHA citations in February 1993 with penalties totaling $4,500. At an informal conference, OSHA offered to cut the penalties to $2,200 if Zantec signed a settlement waiving its right to contest, and Zantec's owner signed it that day. Zantec then tried to file a…
L. R. Willson and Sons, Inc.
Steel-erection tag-line violation affirmed serious, $4,000
L. R. Willson and Sons, a structural steel erector, was cited after a September 1992 OSHA inspection of a steel-erection job in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. The Secretary issued a serious citation with two items but withdrew the first, leaving a single item: failure to use tag lines to control loads…
Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc.
Citations reinstated and remanded after court rejected mootness
The Eleventh Circuit vacated a judge's second dismissal of the Jacksonville Shipyards case as moot. The court held that the case remained live because the Secretary continued to seek civil penalties for alleged past violations even though the company no longer had employees. The Commission…
E.L. Davis Contracting Co.
Excavation violations affirmed with $70,500 in penalties
E.L. Davis Contracting was repairing a sewer line when part of a 20- to 22-foot excavation containing two employees caved in. The Commission affirmed serious violations involving the company's safety program, excavation and confined-space training, and the absence of inspections by a competent…
Article II Gun Shop, Inc., d/b/a Gun World
Lead and hazard-communication items largely affirmed
Gun World sold firearms and ammunition and operated firing ranges at an Illinois facility where employees encountered lead dust and unburned gunpowder. The Commission affirmed serious hazard-communication violations because the company lacked material safety data sheets and did not provide required…
Capform, Inc.
Four concrete-construction safety items affirmed
Capform performed concrete formwork and shoring at a multi-employer construction site in Florida. The Commission affirmed a serious unguarded-rebar item because employees could pass through the hazardous entrance area and the company did not take reasonable alternative protective measures. It also…
Roberts Pipeline Construction, Inc.
$30,800 in penalties affirmed for eight violations
Roberts Pipeline challenged only the penalties assessed for eight serious violations involving training, head protection, compressed-gas storage, electrical grounding, trench access and inspection, and cave-in protection. The Commission held that the judge had considered the statutory factors of…
Seyforth Roofing Company
Roof-perimeter citation vacated under measurement exception
OSHA inspected after a Seyforth Roofing employee fell from a 12-story roof while measuring an area near the perimeter. The company normally used warning lines and a safety monitor, but the lines had been removed for high winds and the day's planned work was on a penthouse away from the roof edge…
Peavey Company
Railcar fall protection affirmed, floor-hole item vacated
Peavey operated a North Dakota grain elevator where employees used a manlift and worked on top of railcars during grain loading. The Commission vacated a floor-hole item because the record did not show that employees would enter the hole's zone of danger during assigned work, normal access, or…
Oceanic Steamship Co. & Oceanic Stevedoring, Inc.
Nonvertical container lifting method violated marine-terminal rule
Oceanic used a four-legged bridle to hoist loaded 20- and 40-foot intermodal containers between ships and a Miami dock. The Commission found the nonvertical lifting method unsafe because international and domestic container specifications showed that most containers of those lengths were not…
A.L. Baumgartner Construction, Inc.
Damaged-cord and unattended-forklift items affirmed
A.L. Baumgartner Construction was cited for two damaged electrical cords and for leaving a forklift used as a work platform unattended without lowering its load-engaging means. The Commission upheld the judge's post-hearing amendment of one electrical item to the more specifically applicable…
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.