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.
E. Smalis Painting Co., Inc.
Commission reduced lead-case penalties to $1.09 million
E. Smalis Painting removed lead-based paint from the Tarentum Bridge using abrasive blasting inside a tarp containment. OSHA measured six workers at lead exposure levels ranging from more than 18 to 669 times the permissible exposure limit, then cited four serious and 202 willful violations with…
Saw Pipes USA, Inc.
Willful recordkeeping penalties remanded after court review
The ALJ affirmed 59 willful violations for failing to properly record occupational injuries and illnesses at Saw Pipes' steel-pipe facility. He grouped the separately cited violations and assessed one $70,000 penalty. The Fifth Circuit held that this grouping produced a penalty below the statutory…
Jindal United Steel Corp.
Recordkeeping penalties remanded after court review
The ALJ affirmed 110 violations for failing to properly record occupational injuries and illnesses at Jindal's steel facility. He treated 82 violations as willful and 28 as other-than-serious, but grouped the willful items into a single $70,000 penalty and assessed $7,000 for the remaining items…
Saw Pipes USA, Inc.
Divided Commission vacates review of willful recordkeeping violations
OSHA cited Saw Pipes USA for numerous failures to record occupational injuries and illnesses on its OSHA 200 logs. The administrative law judge affirmed 59 recordkeeping violations as willful but grouped them for a single $70,000 penalty. Both Commission members agreed that management's knowing…
Jindal United Steel Corp.
Divided Commission leaves grouped recordkeeping penalties in place
OSHA cited Jindal United Steel for extensive failures to record occupational injuries and illnesses on its OSHA 200 logs. The administrative law judge affirmed 110 violations, classifying 82 as willful and 28 as other-than-serious, then grouped them into penalties of $70,000 and $7,000. Both…
Hercules, Inc. and Alliant Techsystems, Inc.
Recordkeeping failure-to-abate notices vacated
OSHA issued Hercules failure-to-abate notices after a settlement required correction of old injury logs and certifications. The underlying citation listed only broad injury categories and counts, while OSHA repeatedly declined to identify the employees and incidents that had to be added. The…
Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital, Inc.
Temporary-worker violations affirmed as non-willful
Froedtert used temporary-agency housekeepers who were exposed to bloodborne-pathogen and chemical hazards at the hospital. The Commission held that Froedtert was their common-law employer because it controlled their assignments, daily activities, tools, work location, and performance, even though…
Coastal Paving, Inc.
Twenty-three items affirmed after contest withdrawal
OSHA issued Coastal Paving three citations containing 23 serious, willful, and other-than-serious items against its asphalt manufacturing operation. Before the hearing, Coastal withdrew its contest and stated that it was no longer in business, had no employees, and could not refute the Secretary's…
Thompson Electric, Inc.
Eye-protection and recordkeeping items affirmed
A Thompson Electric crew worked inside a vault near energized 4,160-volt cable terminations, and no crew member wore eye protection. The crew supervisor received a fatal electric shock when his elbow contacted a tiny exposed spot in insulating tape on an adjacent energized lug. The judge affirmed a…
Union Tank Car Company
Recordkeeping items withdrawn, exposure-record violation left in place
Union Tank Car employees cleaning railcars that had carried electrode binder developed skin and respiratory symptoms, and company monitoring found exposure above OSHA's permissible limit. The judge found that Union Tank Car willfully withheld employee exposure-monitoring records despite repeated…
North Atlantic Fish Company, Inc.
Broad fish-plant safety violations affirmed
OSHA's safety and health inspections of North Atlantic's Massachusetts fish-processing plant identified extensive fire, machine, electrical, chemical, respiratory, noise, storage, and powered-industrial-truck hazards. The judge affirmed most of the serious items, including general duty violations…
Emerson Electric Company, Motor Division
Recordkeeping citations affirmed for not logging two work-related illnesses
Emerson Electric's Motor Division makes household-appliance motors at a plant in Oxford, Mississippi. After a complaint, OSHA inspected the facility and issued an "other than serious" recordkeeping citation, alleging Emerson failed to enter certain work-related illnesses on its OSHA 200…
Commercial Newspaper Service, and its successors
Admitted safety violations affirmed, penalties reduced to $460
Commercial Newspaper Service published athletic posters at a small Meridian, Idaho, facility. The company withdrew its contest to violations involving emergency exit lighting, flammable-liquid and combustible storage, lockout procedures, electrical equipment and wiring, and injury-recordkeeping…
Piggly Wiggly Alabama Distribution Co., Inc.
Wheel-chock violation stands, but training and recordkeeping items fail
Piggly Wiggly operated a large grocery distribution warehouse where a forklift operator was killed when a hostler moved a trailer away from the dock while the employee was still inside. OSHA's inspection produced serious, willful, and recordkeeping citation items. The judge affirmed the serious…
Worldwide Manufacturing, Inc.
Commission affirms willful and repeat machine-guarding violations and raises the penalties
Worldwide Manufacturing runs a small factory in Berkeley, Missouri that makes collapsible sawhorses, folding tables, and metal legs. OSHA inspected in 1995, cited machine-guarding and lockout/tagout problems, and Worldwide settled by agreeing to fix them. A 1997 follow-up inspection found many of…
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…
National Envelope Corporation d/b/a New York Envelope Co.
All remaining machine-safety citations vacated
OSHA issued National Envelope Corporation citations after two inspections of its envelope manufacturing plant. One case alleged inadequate training after a machine operator injured a finger while attempting to address a chip-collector problem. Judge Richard DeBenedetto found that the operator had…
Louis A. Dierzen d/b/a Dierzen Welding & Machine Company, Dierzen Machine Company, and Dierzen Trailer Corporation
Failure-to-abate and repeat spray-area violations affirmed by default
Dierzen ran a welding and machine shop in Newark, Illinois with about 12 employees. In March 1997, OSHA conducted a follow-up inspection to check whether earlier, uncontested violations had been fixed. The inspector found that explosion-proof electrical equipment for the paint spray area had been…
Sea-Jet Trucking Corp.
Five failure-to-abate items affirmed at a New Jersey warehouse, $101,200 in penalties
Sea-Jet Trucking Corp. ran an import-export warehouse in Bloomfield, New Jersey, where most workers were Spanish-speaking. After a 1994 inspection, OSHA cited the company for numerous violations, which it agreed to abate by April 1995 in a signed settlement. When OSHA did not receive an abatement…
Continental Roof Systems, Inc.
Mootness dismissal reversed and case remanded
OSHA cited Continental Roof Systems for sixteen alleged roofing, scaffold, fall-protection, equipment, training, and recordkeeping violations, with $139,600 in proposed penalties. The ALJ dismissed the case as moot after Continental went out of business and had no employees. The Commission had…
Pepperidge Farm, Inc.
Recordkeeping and lifting violations affirmed, repetitive-motion items vacated
OSHA cited Pepperidge Farm for 176 recordkeeping violations, 21 lifting allegations, and 175 repetitive-motion allegations at a cookie and baked-goods plant. The Commission affirmed the recordkeeping violations as willful and assessed instance-by-instance penalties totaling $289,603. It held that…
Tidewater Pacific, Inc.
OSHA jurisdiction upheld on uninspected tugboat
OSHA cited working conditions on an uninspected tugboat operating within Alaska's three-mile territorial waters. The Commission held that a vessel in those waters is a workplace in a state under the OSH Act. Coast Guard regulation did not preempt OSHA's confined-space, machine-guarding…
Geo & Ted Electric Corp.
Two of four contested items upheld against an electrical contractor, two vacated
Geo & Ted Electric Corp. (G&T), a Brooklyn electrical contractor, was one of several contractors renovating New York City's medical examiner building. OSHA inspected after a fatal accident involving a different contractor's employee and cited G&T for serious and repeat violations. By the time of…
Aero Tec Laboratories, Inc.
Plant safety items largely affirmed with reduced penalties
Aero Tec manufactured fuel tanks and containment vessels at its New Jersey plant. The judge rejected its claim that OSHA had promised no penalties or exceeded the scope of consent because management accompanied the open inspection without objecting. The decision affirmed items involving an…
American Airlines, Inc.
FAA ground-operations manual does not preempt OSHA guardrail and hazard-communication citations after a fatal fall
American Airlines ran an aircraft maintenance and repair facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After a worker fell from the third story of a roughly 27-foot mobile "tail stand" work platform through unguarded floor openings to the ground and died, OSHA inspected and issued citations across two dockets…
Trico Technologies Corp.
Failure-to-abate notice restored and remanded, while recordkeeping violations stay other-than-serious rather than willful
Trico Technologies ran a manufacturing plant in Brownsville, Texas, with a press room where workers handled parts coming off power presses. In 1988 OSHA cited the company for a personal protective equipment violation (29 C.F.R. § 1910.132(a)) after press-room employees developed skin rashes from…
General Cutlery Co., Inc.
Knife maker loses on almost every safety and health citation, including a willful hazard-communication violation
General Cutlery makes bayonets and household knives in Fremont, Ohio. After complaint inspections in May 1994, OSHA issued two sets of citations, later consolidated: safety violations (Docket No. 94-2015) and health violations (Docket No. 94-1933). The company, represented by its president, argued…
Murphy Enterprises, Inc., d/b/a Murphy Brothers Exposition
Failed Giant Wheel rope and missing sling inspections yield $10,000
Murphy Brothers Exposition was setting up a 90-foot carnival Ferris wheel in Dallas when a damaged wire rope failed, causing moving wheel components to kill two employees and seriously injure a third employee, whose leg was partially amputated. Administrative Law Judge Stanley M. Schwartz found…
Marshall Durbin
Hearing-protection violations affirmed, one reduced to nonserious
Marshall Durbin operated a chicken-processing plant in Jasper, Alabama. The judge found that two employees exposed above the permissible noise limit were not required to wear hearing protection, affirming that item as serious. A second item was affirmed but reduced to other-than-serious because…
Jewell Painting, Inc.
Lead-paint bridge job, serious items cut to nonserious, water-cooler general-duty item vacated
Jewell Painting removed lead paint from a bridge over the Androscoggin River in Gilead, Maine, then repainted it. After an August 1992 OSHA inspection of the cleanup phase, the agency issued a serious citation and an other-than-serious citation covering nonpotable-water labeling, lead-dust exposure…
Kohler Company
277 recordkeeping violations affirmed with $29,430 penalty
Kohler used a computerized injury log at its Wisconsin manufacturing plant but coded 277 recordable injuries as first-aid cases. Most errors resulted from failing to track later medical treatment, while others occurred because nurses or safety staff overlooked information already available. The…
Craig Mechanical, Inc.
Late contest denied despite unanswered calls to OSHA
OSHA issued Craig Mechanical one serious and several other-than-serious citations with $825 in proposed penalties. The owner called OSHA twice within the 15-working-day contest period, said he wanted the charges dismissed, and was told to wait for the area director, who never returned the calls. He…
Homestead Gourmet Food Co., Inc.
Settlement approved after hearing
OSHA inspected Homestead Gourmet Food Company's facility in Linden, New Jersey, and issued two citations. The citations alleged six serious violations and five other-than-serious violations under standards addressing exits, personal protective equipment, emergency washing, electrical training…
Catalina Freight Lines
Barge vehicle-guarding and recordkeeping items affirmed
Catalina Freight Lines loaded and unloaded cargo vehicles on a barge at its Wilmington, California terminal. Five days after a front loader backed over the bow, OSHA observed forklifts and trailers operating with only an eight-inch angle iron around the deck edge. The ALJ held that Coast Guard…
Art Specialty Company
Lamp manufacturer receives mixed ruling and $5,700 penalty
OSHA cited Art Specialty Company, a 29-employee lamp manufacturer, for numerous serious and other-than-serious conditions. The judge vacated a stairway citation because the Secretary did not prove employees used the stairs, and vacated the metal-shear portion of a machine-guarding item because the…
Hern Iron Works, Inc.
Separate willful recordkeeping penalties upheld and reduced
OSHA cited Hern Iron Works, a small Idaho foundry, for failing to record multiple employee injuries on its OSHA 200 log and supplementary injury records. The Commission held that each separate failure to record an injury can constitute its own violation and support a separate penalty. It affirmed…
Morrison-Knudsen Co., Inc./Yonkers Contracting Co., Inc., A Joint Venture
Willful lead-protection violations draw $40,000
A Morrison-Knudsen and Yonkers Contracting joint venture used cutting torches to demolish a lead-painted bridge in New York City, exposing employees to hazardous airborne lead. The Commission held that the construction air-contaminant standards applied alongside the more specific welding and…
Caterpillar, Inc. et al.
Separate recordkeeping violations affirmed, but willful classification vacated
OSHA cited Caterpillar for 170 failures to record occupational injuries and illnesses on its 1986 OSHA 200 log at an Illinois facility. The Commission held that 167 injuries and illnesses were recordable under 29 C.F.R. § 1904.2(a), rejecting Caterpillar's vagueness and compliance defenses. It also…
Johnson Controls, Inc.
Elevated blood-lead recordkeeping violation reduced to other-than-serious
OSHA cited Johnson Controls after finding 27 employee blood-lead test results above 50 micrograms per 100 grams of whole blood that were not entered on the OSHA 200 logs at its Geneva, Illinois battery plant. The Commission held that the uncorrected omissions were timely cited because OSHA issued…
Johnson Controls, Inc.
Elevated blood-lead level held recordable
OSHA cited Johnson Controls for removing an employee's elevated blood-lead result from the OSHA 200 log at its Milwaukee battery plant. The Commission held that the citation was timely because the inaccurate record remained uncorrected during the five-year retention period and OSHA cited within six…
General Dynamics Corp., Electric Boat Div., Quonset Point Facility
Recordkeeping citations revived and remanded
OSHA cited General Dynamics' Quonset Point shipbuilding facility for alleged inaccuracies and omissions in required injury and illness records. An administrative law judge vacated the citations as untimely under the OSH Act's six-month limitations period. The Commission reversed, holding that the…
Trinity Industries, Inc.
Housekeeping item affirmed and eyewash item vacated
Trinity Industries manufactured railcars at its Bessemer, Alabama, plant. Commission review focused on materials and tools left on elevated work walkways and the availability of water for employees exposed to corrosive paint materials. The Commission affirmed the housekeeping item because Trinity…
Alaska Trawl Fisheries, Inc.
OSHA jurisdiction over factory vessels affirmed
Alaska Trawl Fisheries and Golden Age Fisheries operated vessels that caught and processed fish near Dutch Harbor, Alaska. OSHA cited machine guarding, passageway, recordkeeping, welding-gas storage, and hazard-communication conditions aboard the vessels. The companies stipulated to the violations…
Loomis Cabinet Company
Cabinet workers held to be employees
Loomis Cabinet Company manufactured wooden cabinets and was cited after a follow-up inspection for repeat, other-than-serious, and failure-to-abate violations. Loomis stipulated to the violations but argued that its former employees had become partners in Eastview Cabinet Company, leaving Loomis…
John Morrell & Co., Sioux Falls Plant, and its successors
Ergonomics settlement approved for $990,000
John Morrell, OSHA, and the workers' union settled two cases involving the company's Sioux Falls meatpacking plant. The settlement set a $990,000 penalty for the ergonomics citation and required a separate $260,000 grant to NIOSH for continued study of musculoskeletal injuries. Morrell agreed to…
Mikel Company, Inc.
Grounding item settled for $1 after mixed plant ruling
Mikel Company manufactured furniture at a Bronx plant where OSHA cited flammable-liquid storage, spray-finishing, hazard communication, posting, and injury-recordkeeping conditions. The ALJ affirmed several storage-room and spray-booth ventilation items with $375 in penalties, vacated several…
Keco Industries, Inc.
Record-access and blasting-respirator violations affirmed
Keco Industries manufactured military and aerospace equipment and performed abrasive blasting in an enclosed facility at its Ohio plant. The Commission affirmed a willful record-access violation because Keco refused repeated requests for prior injury and illness logs even after OSHA presented an…
Harrison Furniture Manufacturing Company
Commission approves withdrawal of all citations
OSHA cited Harrison Furniture Manufacturing Company for numerous conditions at its Arkansas furniture plant after an inspection conducted under a warrant. The earlier litigation addressed whether evidence from a plant-wide inspection should be suppressed when the warrant application was based on…
A.B. Chance Company
Record-access citation vacated for lack of legal process
A.B. Chance consented to an OSHA inspection limited to employee-complaint items but refused to provide its OSHA injury and illness forms without a warrant. OSHA did not obtain a warrant or issue an administrative subpoena and instead cited the company for denying access to the records. The judge…
Synkote Paint Company, KDK Upset Forging Company
Citations affirmed despite warrant challenges
Synkote Paint and KDK Upset Forging challenged programmed-inspection warrants as broader than the administrative plans used to establish probable cause. Each company stipulated that it had committed the cited violations while preserving its warrant and suppression arguments. The Commission read…
Amoco Chemicals Corporation
Illness-recording and medical-notice items vacated
OSHA alleged that Amoco willfully failed to record asbestos-related illnesses and failed to tell an employee about a potentially serious pleural condition. The Commission held that the record did not prove Amoco had enough information and expertise at the relevant time to reasonably diagnose the…
Anoplate Corporation
Mixed ruling on plating, chemical storage, and recordkeeping items
Anoplate operated an electroplating and metal-finishing plant with open chemical tanks, chemical storage, spray painting, and compressed-air work. The Commission affirmed a nonserious eye-protection violation because dipping racks created a significant risk of harmful splashes, and it assessed $25…
Consolidated Rail Corporation
Repair-pit and recordkeeping items vacated
OSHA cited Conrail after inspecting a diesel shop in Buffalo, New York, alleging unguarded locomotive repair pits and failure to maintain an occupational injury and illness log. The Commission vacated the pit-guarding item because its then-current precedent treated a Federal Railroad Administration…
Puget Sound Tug & Barge; Mission Viking, Inc.; Northwestern Construction, Inc.
Maritime citations affirmed despite Coast Guard authority
Three maritime employers argued that Coast Guard authority displaced OSHA requirements for work on vessels and barges. The cited conditions included respiratory and flotation protection, crane and deck hazards, recordkeeping, unguarded rigging, unsecured propane tanks, and unsafe passage between…
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…
Building Products Company
Commission affirms the radial-saw lower-blade-guard charge and a total $150 penalty
Building Products Company manufactured wooden roof trusses using three radial saws whose employees had removed the lower blade guards. The company argued that the guards could eject wood chips during compound cuts and therefore created a separate hazard. The Commission held that the greater-hazard…
Parnon Construction, Inc.
Central records allowed and extinguisher item vacated
Parnon Construction performed masonry work at several dispersed construction sites and kept its injury and illness log at its main office. The Commission held that this centralized system complied with the rule for physically dispersed operations because foremen reported daily, the office contact…
Adler & Neilson Co., Inc.
Central recordkeeping satisfied construction rules
Adler & Neilson performed architectural metal installation as a subcontractor at a temporary construction site. OSHA cited the company for not keeping its injury and illness log and annual summary at that worksite. The Commission found that the company had maintained the records at its central…
Howard P. Foley Co.
Injury-log item affirmed and four worksite items vacated
Howard P. Foley performed electrical work at a power-plant construction site. The judge affirmed a recordkeeping item because the onsite injury and illness log contained no entry for a known lost-time injury, and he assessed a $50 penalty. He vacated a housekeeping item because valves awaiting…
Savina Home Industries, Inc.
Failure-to-abate notification vacated
Savina received a failure-to-abate notification after a follow-up inspection concerning an injury log, first-aid training, and a welding hood hanging on a fire extinguisher. The Commission explained that a prima facie failure-to-abate case requires a final original citation and the identical…
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.