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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St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co.
Locomotive-pit guardrail violation affirmed
St. Louis-San Francisco Railway was cited for open-sided platforms beside locomotive inspection pits that lacked required railings. The company argued that a Federal Railroad Administration policy displaced OSHA authority and that guardrails would create greater hazards during locomotive…
Jenn-Air Corporation
Abatement-modification order set aside and remanded
Jenn-Air filed an amended petition seeking modification of an abatement requirement, and the judge approved it. Before the parties received that order, Jenn-Air asked the judge to delay action so the parties could meet. The Secretary agreed, the union did not object, and all parties later supported…
Cross & Brown Company
Elevator failure-to-abate penalty reduced to $1,000
Cross & Brown managed an industrial building whose elevators lacked gates and interlocks, and an elevator accident fatally injured an employee. The company did not complete permanent correction by the citation's abatement date, but it immediately shut down the involved elevator, installed temporary…
Steel Erectors, Inc.
Safe-access and exposed-rebar violations affirmed
Steel Erectors employees worked at an elevated monorail station roughly 40 feet above the ground. The company provided a scaffold stairway and unguarded planks for part of the route, but two ironworkers instead attempted to climb a vertical column and one fell to his death. Employees also worked…
Paul Betty d/b/a Betty Brothers
Scaffold and housekeeping violations affirmed but repetition rejected
Two Betty Brothers employees worked from a 12-foot scaffold without guardrails or an access ladder, and debris with protruding nails surrounded the work area. The senior employee supervised the other worker, purchased materials, reported progress, and acted as the company's on-site representative…
Denka Chemical Corporation
Respirator abatement-extension petition remanded for hearing
Denka Chemical agreed to obtain approved respirator canisters by October 1, 1980, but its supplier could deliver only 60 of the 100 ordered units by that date. The company sought an abatement extension because the limited inventory might interrupt its protection program. The judge dismissed the…
ASAMERA Oil (U.S.), Inc.
Respirator and emergency-washing rulings severed from electrical review
ASAMERA Oil's consolidated refinery cases included respiratory-protection, emergency-washing, and electrical citation items. In Docket No. 79-1756, the judge affirmed a serious respiratory-protection item with a $360 penalty and part of an emergency-washing item with a $50 penalty. No party sought…
John W. Eshelman & Sons
Defective-forklift violation classified as willful
John W. Eshelman & Sons continued using a forklift after its brakes were reported defective. The brakes worsened, another employee unknowingly drove the truck into a loading table, and the company still kept it in service because both forklifts were needed for production. A repair technician was…
General Motors Corporation
Citation item vacation reversed and remanded
The Commission reversed the portion of the judge's decision that had vacated item 1 of a citation issued to General Motors. It remanded the case for further proceedings on that item. The official release does not identify the cited standard, the workplace condition, the parties' arguments, or the…
General Motors Corporation
Judge decision reversed and case remanded
The Commission reversed the judge's decision in General Motors' case and remanded the matter for further proceedings. The official release does not identify the citation, cited standard, workplace facts, disputed legal issue, or basis for reversal. It also does not state a penalty or decide the…
R.C. Diving Company, Inc.
Commercial-diving citations restored for further proceedings
OSHA cited commercial-diving conditions aboard a boat used to harvest geoducks in Puget Sound. The judge dismissed the citations after finding insufficient proof that R.C. Diving employed the workers. The Commission held that the compliance officer's testimony about statements identifying Rod Carew…
Bethlehem Steel Corporation
Scaffold-gap items vacated and ten violations classified as repeated
Two inspections of a supertanker at Bethlehem Steel's shipyard produced scaffold, platform, opening, and housekeeping citations. The Commission vacated the scaffold-gap items because the cited maintenance rule addressed structural soundness, not the allowable distance between staging and a…
John Deere Foundry, a Division of Deere Company; Bunge Corporation
Selective settlement approval rejected
In two cases, the judge approved selected settlement terms while rejecting non-admission provisions and entering factual findings without a hearing. The Commission held that it may review settlements for consistency with the Act but may not rewrite them through selective approval. It also held that…
Stuttgart Machine Works, Inc.
Employee-misconduct defense rejected
A foreman was electrocuted when a truck-mounted derrick contacted an energized power line, and a helper was shocked. The Commission rejected the employer's unpreventable employee misconduct defense because its power-line rule was ambiguous, was not communicated to all exposed employees, and was not…
General Motors Corporation, GM Parts Division
Ancestor-standard challenge barred
General Motors challenged the personal protective equipment standard on the ground that the older Walsh-Healey standard from which it was derived had been amended without proper rulemaking. The Commission held that an employer may not use an OSHA enforcement proceeding to attack the procedural…
E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Company; Chemical & Industrial Union
Settlement exculpatory clause approved
The employees' union objected to a settlement clause stating that the citation, pleadings, abatement, penalty payment, and final order would not be admissions or evidence in non-OSHA proceedings. The Commission adopted the judge's reasoning and approved the settlement. Commissioner Cottine…
Weatherby Engineering Company
Scaffold standard held unenforceable
The Commission reviewed the vacatur of a citation alleging that an elevated scaffold platform lacked guardrails and toeboards. It adhered to precedent holding that 29 C.F.R. § 1910.28(a)(3) was unenforceable because OSHA changed the source ANSI language from advisory “should” to mandatory “shall”…
Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc.
Settlement approved after dismissal reversed
The judge vacated two citations after denying a jointly supported postponement for ongoing settlement negotiations and after the Secretary did not present evidence at the scheduled hearing. The Commission held that dismissal was unjustified because the parties acted in good faith, neither party's…
Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation
Court-ordered penalty and classification changes
Acting under a Third Circuit order, the Commission modified previously final judge decisions. The official release reduces a $180 penalty to $90 and changes the related violation's characterization to nonserious, while leaving the judge's decisions unchanged in all other respects. The release does…
Concrete Construction Company
Crane swing-radius standard held inapplicable
Concrete Construction used a dragline to dredge soil from a river and place it nearby. Although the machine could perform limited lifting and could be converted into a crane after substantial modification, the Commission held that it was not performing a function normally performed by a crane at…
George Barry, et al., d/b/a Union Waterproofing, Roofing and Painting Co.
Default vacated for notice inquiry
After George Barry failed to appear at two hearings, the judge dismissed the notice of contest and affirmed citations carrying $6,000 in proposed penalties. Barry asserted that he was not the employer and had not received notice because the hearing orders were not sent to his correct address. The…
Davidson Texas, Inc.
Dismissal set aside for settlement review
The judge vacated citations after the Secretary failed to file a complaint and did not answer a show-cause order. Unknown to the judge, the parties had already filed a signed settlement agreement with the Commission's national office. Because the Secretary's conduct was not contumacious and the…
Carhar Contracting Company, Inc.
Judge authorized to rule on late complaint
The Secretary filed a complaint after its extended deadline and asked that it be accepted. The judge treated the request as one to waive a Commission rule and concluded that only the Commission could decide it. The Commission clarified that accepting a late pleading is an ordinary procedural matter…
Frank Swidzinski Company
Unguarded loading-platform citation affirmed
An employee stood inches from the unguarded end of a fourth-floor material platform while directing a crane, exposing him to a 41-foot fall. The Commission rejected the employer's employee-misconduct defense because there was no relevant work rule, and rejected impossibility because blocks could be…
F. Benson & Company, Inc.
Erroneous settlement order vacated
The parties reported that their earlier stipulation and joint motion mistakenly included citation items already deleted by OSHA and therefore overstated the remaining penalty as $864 instead of $576. Because the record did not contain a corrected stipulation showing the parties' intent and the…
Henry C. Beck Company, Inc.
Late complaint accepted and citation restored
The judge denied the Secretary's motion to file a late complaint and vacated the citation, criticizing a regional practice of not filing complaints in routine cases. The Commission held that late filing did not justify vacatur without contumacious conduct or prejudice, found neither on the existing…
Turner Company
Noise-control feasibility issue remanded for evidence
Turner Company was cited for excessive noise from three machines in the Waterbury room of its Sycamore, Illinois, plant. An earlier Commission decision treated the company as having conceded that engineering controls were economically feasible, but the Seventh Circuit set that decision aside. The…
FWA Drilling Company, Inc.
Late complaint accepted
The judge denied the Secretary's motion to file a late complaint and vacated the citation as part of a consolidated ruling involving five employers. The Commission held that the Secretary's explanation precluded a finding of contumacious conduct and that FWA Drilling had not established prejudice…
Allied Plant Maintenance Company of Oklahoma, Inc.
Late complaint accepted
The judge denied the Secretary's motion to file a late complaint and vacated the citation. The Commission found no contumacious conduct or established prejudice to the employer, reversed the vacatur, accepted the complaint, gave the employer 15 days to answer, severed this docket from four…
General Motors Corporation, GM Assembly Division
Late complaint accepted
The judge denied the Secretary's motion to file a late complaint and vacated the citation. Applying its rule that late filing does not justify vacatur without contumacious conduct or prejudice, the Commission found the Secretary's explanation sufficient and no employer prejudice established. It…
Noranda Aluminum, Inc.
Discovery dismissal vacated
The judge vacated a willful general-duty-clause citation carrying a proposed $6,000 penalty after the Secretary failed to timely answer interrogatories. The Commission held that dismissal was too harsh because the judge had not found contumacious conduct and the employer's claimed prejudice was…
A. Schonbek & Co., Inc.
Unguarded press violation held willful
A pneumatic press amputated portions of an employee's fingers, yet more than a month later the company continued using another die on the press without point-of-operation guarding. The Commission found that the company knew all five dies presented an amputation hazard and that its limited response…
General Electric Company
Advisory respirator-review provision unenforceable
OSHA alleged that General Electric failed to periodically review the medical status of an employee who used a respirator in abrasive blasting. The cited sentence said medical status “should” be reviewed and was adopted verbatim from an ANSI source that treated “should” provisions as advisory. The…
CCI, Inc.
Serious trenching violation affirmed
CCI employees worked in a 13- to 15-foot-deep trench with vertical, unsupported walls made of layered soil. The Commission held that a trench containing a significant amount of hard or compact soil must comply with the shoring or sloping requirements even if some layers may be cemented material. It…
Consolidated Aluminum Corporation
Slitter nip-point violations affirmed as nonserious
Employees working around three slitters and a cold mill could contact moving aluminum stock and be pulled into unguarded nip points. The Commission held that an unsigned oral settlement was not enforceable, an earlier settlement did not excuse the later guarding violations, and the employer failed…
The Bronze Craft Corporation
Molten-metal PPE item vacated
The issue on review was whether employees working with molten metal required personal protective equipment above the waist under the general PPE standard. After reviewing the record and the parties' arguments, the Commission adopted the judge's reasoning and affirmed the conclusion that the…
Cargill, Inc.
Settlement and withdrawal approved
The Commission approved the parties' November 25, 1980 stipulation of settlement and notice of withdrawal. The short official order does not identify the citation, cited standards, settlement terms, penalties, or underlying workplace facts.
Chapman Construction Co., Inc.
Repeated grounding and serious fall violations affirmed
A portable circular saw previously cited for lack of grounding again failed a continuity test, and employees used stairways and landings with missing or inadequate rails. The Commission held that inexpensive continuity testing would have revealed the saw's latent grounding defect through reasonable…
Special Metals Corporation
Remote grating did not establish employee access
An unguarded metal grating was located 30 feet above a shipping area and could be reached only by climbing a ladder. The grating was not used in normal work or maintenance, and no employee had occasion to use it during the prior year. The Commission held that working below the grating did not…
Gallo Mechanical Contractors, Inc.
Construction debris violation narrowed
Employees had to weave through or step over wood, steel, pipe, and equipment at two construction-site elevations. The Commission held that “debris” includes scattered material even if it may be reused, but does not include equipment to be installed or removed. It affirmed the first-elevation…
Nashua Corporation
Open-ended noise settlement rejected
The proposed settlement required Nashua to test a prototype noise enclosure but allowed it to abandon the control if it interfered with production, without setting a final abatement date or assuring another corrective measure. The Commission held that experimentation could support abatement but…
Research-Cottrell, Inc.
Settlement order corrected
The Commission found that the judge's order did not accurately reflect the parties' settlement. It corrected the order so that serious Citation 1 items 1 and 6 alleged a violation of 29 C.F.R. § 1926.450(a), redesignated item 1 as subitem 6(d), and affirmed the order as modified. The official…
General Divers Company
Rule 60(b) relief request remanded
The Commission construed the employer's letter as a motion for relief from a final order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). Because the record lacked enough information to determine whether relief was warranted, it remanded so the employer could present its basis for relief and the judge…
Harris Brothers Roofing Co.
Late-contest inquiry required before merits review
Harris Brothers filed its notice of contest after the statutory 15-working-day deadline and asked that the case be reopened. Instead of determining whether Secretary deception or procedural failure excused the delay, the judge vacated the citation on the merits based on control and employee access…
General Motors Corporation, Frigidaire Division
Power-press control distance violation affirmed
Testing showed that a mechanical press took 0.60 to 0.63 seconds to stop, requiring its two-hand controls to be about 39.69 inches from the die, while the actual distance was 25 inches. The Commission held that the safety-distance rule applied even if the press was intended as a no-hands-in-die…
Bunkoff Construction Co., Inc.
Jackhammer foot-shield citation vacated
OSHA cited a jackhammer operator's use of ordinary work shoes without metal foot shields. The Commission agreed that the construction PPE standard applied, but the majority vacated for different reasons: Chairman Cleary found the Secretary had not shown that a reasonable person would recognize a…
L.A. Dreyfus Company
Machine-guarding settlement approved
The parties settled a machine-guarding citation originally classified as repeated with a proposed $360 penalty. The settlement reclassified the violation as serious but not repeated, reduced the penalty to $200, recorded abatement, withdrew the employer's contest and the Secretary's review…
Coeur D'Alene Tribal Farm
Tribal-enterprise coverage remanded
The judge held that the Occupational Safety and Health Act applied to the Coeur D'Alene Tribal Farm despite its status as an enterprise of an Indian tribal government. After issuing a separate decision holding that OSHA could not be applied inconsistently with tribal treaty rights, the Commission…
R. Zoppo Co., Inc.
Serious trenching violation affirmed
R. Zoppo challenged the judge's finding that a trench was inadequately sloped and the classification of the violation as serious. After reviewing the record, the Commission adopted the judge's findings and affirmed the serious trenching violation and $750 penalty. Commissioner Cottine concurred but…
Benton Foundry, Inc.
Failure-to-abate dismissal remanded
The judge vacated a failure-to-abate notification carrying a proposed $5,000 penalty because the Secretary did not file a complaint or answer the employer's motion. On review, the Secretary asserted that the notification had been incorporated into a complaint in a related docket and the omission of…
CMH Company, Inc.; Carhar Contracting Company, Inc.
Correct employer substituted after fatal accident
Two Carhar employees died in a sewer manhole, but OSHA cited the closely related CMH company after relying on a foreman's mistaken identification. Both corporations had the same owners and officers, and their shared vice-president had assigned the project from CMH to Carhar and received the…
Brown & Root, Power Plant Division
Advisory crane provisions unenforceable
OSHA cited Brown & Root under a construction crane standard incorporating industry provisions that said operators “should” avoid carrying loads over people and “should” provide level footing for outriggers. The Commission held that the incorporated source documents expressly treated “should”…
Raybestos Friction Materials Company
Settlement rejected for notice and completeness defects
OSHA cited Raybestos Friction Materials Company over employee medical information, access to asbestos-related medical records, and injury and illness recordkeeping. The Secretary and Raybestos submitted a settlement, which the judge approved. The Commission found that the proposal lacked proof that…
Forte Brothers, Inc.
Sua sponte discovery order vacated
The judge ordered the Secretary to produce documents claimed to be protected by the informer's privilege and work-product doctrine, even though the employer had not filed a motion to compel. The Commission held that a Rule 34 request and objection remain outside judicial involvement unless the…
Stripe-A-Zone
New citations allowed after dismissal without prejudice
OSHA first cited Stripe-A-Zone after inspecting a freeway worksite where a fatality had occurred, then withdrew that citation without prejudice. After the withdrawal order became final, OSHA issued new citations based on the same inspection and facts but with different legal allegations and…
C. R. Burnett and Sons, Inc. and Harllee Farms
Farm labor camps covered by OSHA standards
C. R. Burnett and Sons and Harllee Farms operated rent-free temporary camps for migrant farm workers. The judge vacated citations for shelter, heating, sanitation, lighting, and OSHA-notice violations because the workers were not required to live in the camps. The Commission held that camp…
Boam Company
Identification rule applies to job-made chain slings
Boam Company used a job-made steel chain sling to lift pipe onto a truck. The sling broke, and the falling pipe fatally injured an employee. The judge vacated a citation alleging that the sling lacked identification for its size, grade, rated capacity, and manufacturer because he read the rule as…
Erskine-Fraser Co.
Unguarded girder citation affirmed
Steel-erection employees used an unguarded concrete girder 28 to 30 feet above the ground as a walkway between piers. Although the general contractor was responsible for guardrails, the Commission held that each employer remained responsible for protecting its own employees and that Erskine-Fraser…
Marion Power Shovel Company, Inc.
Welder fall-protection citation affirmed
An employee operated a chipping hammer while standing unprotected on a small area of a large metal dipper back 8½ feet above the floor. The Commission held that the specific welding fall-protection standard did not require the Secretary to prove feasibility as part of the prima facie case…
Morrison-Knudsen & Associates
Exposed tunnel power cable violation found willful
Morrison-Knudsen was the prime contractor on a subway tunnel project where energized 480-volt and 7,200-volt cables lay on tunnel floors exposed to water, mud, debris, concrete, and moving equipment. The judge affirmed a single serious violation but refused to let the Secretary amend the case to…
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.