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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H.G. Arias & Associates, LLC
Hazard-communication training citation vacated
H.G. Arias & Associates was an El Paso staffing agency that supplied temporary employees to Stampcoat, a metal-products manufacturer. OSHA originally issued three serious citation items, withdrew two before trial, and pursued a $9,680 hazard-communication training item concerning four Arias…
Amazing Vitamins, LLC
Reconsideration denied and late contests dismissed
OSHA issued Amazing Vitamins numerous citations arising from inspections of its nutritional-supplement manufacturing facility, including later failure-to-abate and repeat items. The company filed notices of contest long after the 15-working-day deadlines and argued that settlement discussions, mail…
Riverdale Mills Corporation
Lockout items mostly vacated, health items affirmed
Riverdale Mills manufactures coated wire mesh on a long production line at its Massachusetts facility. After an employee suffered a severe arm injury while adjusting moving mesh, OSHA issued safety and health citations involving lockout/tagout, machine guarding, chemical training, and access to…
Finley, LLC, and its successors
Two trench items affirmed and four items vacated
OSHA found five Finley workers leaving an excavation with water along most of its length. The judge found that Finley took no precautions in response to the accumulated water and did not perform an adequate competent-person inspection or reassess the soil after conditions changed. Those two serious…
Mansfield Industrial, Inc.
Training violations affirmed and PPE assessment citation vacated
Mansfield Industrial removed corrosion from piping at a Texas chemical plant where a pipe ruptured and released trichlorosilane, causing two employees to inhale the chemical and one to suffer chemical burns. OSHA cited Mansfield for process-safety and hazard-communication training violations and…
Timberline Hardwood Floors LLC
Most violations affirmed with $166,265 in penalties
Timberline manufactured hardwood flooring with woodworking machinery at the same facility used by a predecessor company under the same manager. OSHA cited extensive deficiencies involving hearing conservation, hazard communication, exits, fire-extinguisher training, machine guarding, compressed…
Stone House Enterprises, Inc., d/b/a Jacksonville Granite
Late notice of contest dismissed
Stone House Enterprises fabricates and installs granite countertops. OSHA issued citations from two inspections addressing fire-extinguisher maintenance, forklift and hazard-communication training, and silica-related conditions. The company received both citation packages on June 6, 2019, but did…
Mansfield Industrial, Inc.
Chemical training and respirator items vacated
Six Mansfield Industrial employees were hospitalized after a chlorine release at a plastics facility. OSHA cited the company for allegedly inadequate hazardous-chemical training and for failing to provide one employee an annual respirator fit test. The judge found that OSHA did not identify how…
Envision Waste Services, LLC
Safety items split and penalties reduced
Envision Waste Services operated a waste-sorting facility where employees separated recyclables from mixed waste that included used needles and other medical waste. The Commission affirmed the requirement for puncture-resistant gloves and violations involving fire-extinguisher, bloodborne-pathogen…
Lloyd Industries, Inc.
Machine guarding and health violations largely affirmed
Lloyd Industries manufactured fire dampers and HVAC products at a Pennsylvania plant where a former employee's fingers were amputated by a press brake. OSHA's safety and health inspections identified unguarded machine points of operation and power-transmission parts, improperly closed electrical…
Empire Roofing Company of Georgia, Inc.
Roof and aerial-lift fall violations affirmed
An Empire Roofing crew repaired a hotel roof about 40 feet above the ground using an aerial lift for access. Near the end of the day, the four workers removed their harnesses and continued working on the sloped metal roof for about 10 to 15 minutes, then descended in the lift without being tied…
Charles W. Mason, DDS, & Associates, PLLC
Chemical training and sharps disposal violations affirmed
Clinical assistants at an orthodontic practice handled hydroquinone film-developing solution without effective hazard training and disposed of blood- or saliva-contaminated dental wires in plastic trash bags. The Commission found the chemical hazardous and held that training begun after OSHA's…
American Recycling & Manufacturing Co., Inc.
Broad safety violations affirmed after amputation inspection
American Recycling & Manufacturing produced wood packaging materials and pallets at a Rochester, New York facility. OSHA opened a safety inspection after a twenty-year-old employee's left hand was amputated when a coworker accidentally activated a pop-up saw, then opened a related health inspection…
Basic Marine, Inc.
Most shipyard citations affirmed
Basic Marine performed shipbuilding and repair work involving confined spaces, hazardous coatings, forklifts, cranes, lifting equipment, and work on barges and a pier. The judge affirmed nearly all contested items, including violations involving confined-space testing and rescue, respiratory…
D & D Masonry Services, Inc.
Scaffold violations largely affirmed with reduced penalties
D & D Masonry used a multilevel scaffold for masonry work at a Georgia construction site. OSHA found wide platform gaps, damaged planks, unsecured scaffold legs, missing fall protection and a midrail, and a closed stepladder used as access. The judge affirmed those scaffold and ladder conditions as…
Avcon, Inc., Vasilios Saites, and Nicholas Saites
Fall-protection violations largely affirmed with $77,350 penalty
OSHA cited numerous hazards during construction of an eighteen-story concrete building. The Commission dismissed Bill and Nick Saites individually because the Secretary added them after the six-month limitations period and did not show that their original omission resulted from a mistake that would…
Big Sky Well Service
Grinder use near crude-oil vapors led to $10,150 in penalties
Big Sky Well Service sent two employees to remove and replace a leaking crude-oil storage tank at an Ohio well site. A supervisor used an electric grinder to cut a notch in the tank while another employee worked on top, and the tank exploded, throwing that employee into nearby woods and causing a…
Dierzen-Kewanee Heavy Industries, LTD
Unabated hazards resulted in $133,100 in penalties
Dierzen-Kewanee manufactured dump-truck bodies at a former boiler factory in Illinois. After settling earlier OSHA citations, the company paid only the first penalty installment, did not provide requested abatement information, and left many cited conditions uncorrected for a follow-up inspection…
St. Lawrence Food Corp., dba Primo Foods
Most dairy-plant health and safety citations affirmed
OSHA conducted health and safety inspections at Primo Foods, a kosher dairy, and cited hazards involving ammonia refrigeration, respirators, confined spaces, chemical training, noise, machine guarding, electrical work, lockout/tagout, powered industrial trucks, and recordkeeping. The ALJ found that…
Cipriano Martinez d/b/a Martinez Masonry
Illness did not excuse late contest and $38,000 penalty
OSHA issued Martinez Masonry serious, repeat, and other-than-serious citations involving scaffolds and hazard communication. The owner filed the notice of contest after the 15-working-day deadline and argued that flu-like symptoms prevented timely action. The medical records did not show that he…
Lewis County Dairy Corp.
Widespread safety violations result in $72,750 penalty
OSHA found extensive safety deficiencies at Lewis County Dairy's kosher dairy plant, including missing safety programs, inadequate lockout practices, unguarded equipment, electrical hazards, deficient fall protection, and insufficient hazard communication. Of the 33 serious citation items, the…
Pettey Oil Fields Services, Inc.
Incomplete logging-standard order remanded
Pettey employees pushed down and cut trees while clearing a route for a gas line in West Virginia. OSHA issued multiple logging-standard and hazard-communication citation items, and the judge granted summary judgment to OSHA on the logging standard's applicability and fair-notice issues. The…
Environmental Enterprises, Inc.
Settlement motion prompted remand for employee comment
Environmental Enterprises treated hazardous wastewater at its Cincinnati facility, where mixing sodium sulfide and an acid generated hydrogen sulfide that rendered an employee unconscious. The judge affirmed three serious violations involving excessive exposure, engineering or administrative…
Cargill, Inc.
Lockout violation affirmed after palletizer fatality
A Cargill employee was killed after entering a palletizer's pusher area without de-energizing and locking out the machine. Cargill argued that the event was unpreventable employee misconduct because it had written policies, recurring training, peer observations, and discipline. The judge found that…
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…
Luna Tech, Inc.
Settlement approved with $50,000 in combined penalties
The two cases arose from OSHA inspections of Luna Tech's fireworks-manufacturing plant, including an inspection after explosions and fires injured three employees and one later died. While the cases were under Commission review, the parties settled all remaining issues. The Secretary withdrew…
Trinity Marine Products, Inc.
Welding electrical-hazard citations vacated
Trinity manufactured river barges at a Tennessee shipyard where a newly assigned welder received a fatal electric shock while tack welding. OSHA alleged that the welding rod holder was not fully insulated, employees lacked adequate hazard-communication training, and Trinity failed to keep welders'…
M & D Power Constructors, Inc.
Willful arsenic violations affirmed
M&D performed maintenance and demolition work during an outage at an Alabama coal-fired power plant, where fly ash in air heaters and an old precipitator contained inorganic arsenic. Judge Ken S. Welsch found that the air heaters remained regulated areas until representative monitoring showed…
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…
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…
Trinity Industries Inc.
Machine and electrical case settled for $800
OSHA inspected two Trinity Industries railcar fabrication plants in Dallas and cited numerous machine guarding, crane, electrical, tool, fire extinguisher, sling, and hazard communication conditions. An OSHRC judge affirmed several serious and other-than-serious items and vacated others. During…
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.