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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Schindler Elevator Corporation
General-industry citations vacated for construction work
Schindler Elevator was replacing and upgrading 49 elevators at a Houston office tower under a project valued at more than $24 million. OSHA cited three serious violations under general-industry personal protective equipment and lockout-tagout standards, with $26,787 in proposed penalties. Schindler…
Schaad Detective Agency, Inc.
Bulletproof-vest citation vacated because the PPE standard did not apply
Schaad Detective Agency provided armed guards for Pennsylvania Turnpike employees who collected and transported toll revenue. After a guard who was not wearing a bulletproof vest was shot and killed during an attempted robbery, OSHA cited Schaad under the personal protective equipment standard and…
C & W Facility Services, Inc.
Personal flotation device citation affirmed
C & W Facility Services managed janitorial work at the Tampa Convention Center, including workers carried on subcontractor Awnclean's weekly payroll. A worker pressure washing an unguarded dock without a personal flotation device walked backward into Tampa Bay and drowned. The judge found that C &…
Tony Watson, d/b/a Countryside Tree Service
Willful woodchipper and PPE violations affirmed
Countryside Tree Service used a five-person crew at three residential tree-removal sites. A 23-year-old employee with no tree-service experience was killed after becoming ensnared in a woodchipper on his first day of work. The judge found that the owner allowed two inexperienced employees to feed…
Birdsboro Kosher Farms Corp.
Lockout, noise, exit, and PPE citations largely affirmed
Birdsboro Kosher Farms operated a large poultry-processing facility with a history of OSHA citations and settlements addressing lockout/tagout and occupational noise. The judge found that Birdsboro still lacked required machine-specific energy-control procedures, adequate authorized-employee…
Red Lake Nation Fisheries, Inc.
Tribal-enterprise citations dismissed
Red Lake Nation Fisheries was a commercial fishing and fish-processing enterprise owned and operated by the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians on its Minnesota reservation. After two employees drowned while harvesting fish, OSHA cited the enterprise for not requiring personal flotation devices and…
Henry Marine Service, Inc.
Attorney-fee application denied
Henry Marine previously won summary judgment vacating OSHA citations concerning safe access to a tugboat and personal flotation devices. The company then sought $92,402.64 in attorney fees, expert fees, and expenses under the Equal Access to Justice Act. The judge found Henry Marine eligible and a…
Henry Marine Service, Inc.
Tugboat access and flotation citations vacated
Henry Marine operated a tugboat on the Mobile River, where an employee was found dead in the water near the vessel. OSHA cited the company for an unsafe means of boarding and leaving the vessel and for failing to provide a personal flotation device. The judge granted Henry Marine summary judgment…
Wright Touch Landscaping & Heavy Equipment, Inc.
Fall-protection and reporting items affirmed
Wright Touch Landscaping performed tree-trimming work using an aerial lift and from the roof of a Miami residence. A worker was hospitalized after sustaining a head injury at the worksite and later died without leaving the hospital. The judge found that Wright Touch employed the worker because the…
Cranesville Block Co.
Review withdrawn and judge's ruling made final
The judge decided three consolidated dockets involving related Cranesville companies. The Secretary petitioned for Commission review only of issues in two companion dockets, not docket 10-0447. The Commission therefore severed 10-0447 and vacated its direction for review of that case. The judge's…
Loren Cook Company
Machine-guarding items vacated over standard applicability
Loren Cook manufactured fans and blowers using small manual spinning lathes. A 12-pound metal workpiece was ejected from a lathe and fatally struck an employee in the head. OSHA withdrew three personal-protective-equipment items during the hearing and pursued seven willful machine-guarding items…
Petro Hunt, LLC
Flame-resistant-clothing citation vacated at oil production site
Petro Hunt operated an oil production facility in North Dakota where a treater shed caught fire shortly after two employees left the site. OSHA cited the company because it did not require employees who gauged tanks and worked around hydrocarbon pressure vessels to wear flame-resistant clothing…
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…
Kone, Inc.
Fall protection was required on stationary elevator car tops
A Kone apprentice technician was found dead at the bottom of an elevator shaft after being assigned to clean and paint the tops of two elevator cars. The judge found that working on a stationary car top exposed the technician to a 30-foot fall through openings at the back and side, and that a…
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…
Greenleaf Motor Express
Confined-space items affirmed with willful classifications reduced
Greenleaf employees entered tanker trailers to pressure-wash them after transporting titanium dioxide slurry. An employee died inside a tanker whose oxygen level measured 11 percent after nitrogen had been used to pressurize it during unloading. The Commission held that Greenleaf should have asked…
United States Postal Service and National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 51
Reflective-clothing citation vacated
OSHA cited the Postal Service after a vehicle struck a letter carrier's pushcart while she crossed a street near twilight. The Postal Service already offered reflective vests and issued uniforms with reflective strips, but OSHA argued that carriers needed garments meeting an ANSI high-visibility…
Buckeye Ready Mix, Inc.
Mixer lockout violations result in $8,000 penalty
A Buckeye Ready Mix crew entered a concrete mixer drum to remove hardened concrete. After the drum was repositioned, the circuit breakers were not locked out again, and the drum closed while an employee remained inside, fatally crushing him. The judge found Buckeye's written energy-control…
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…
McWane, Inc., d/b/a Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Company
Repeat protective-clothing violation results in $10,000 penalty
An employee cleaned hot iron and calcium oxide from a foundry pit without heat- and chemical-resistant coveralls, exposing unprotected skin to thermal and chemical burns. McWane conceded the violation but disputed whether it was repeat. The judge found it substantially similar to a 2003 violation…
AAA Delivery Services, Inc.
Attorney-fee application denied
AAA distributed newspapers through street-corner vendors, one of whom died after an automobile struck him while he was selling papers. OSHA cited AAA for failing to provide reflective clothing, but the Commission later vacated the citation because the vendor was an independent contractor rather…
AAA Delivery Services, Inc.
Reflective-vest citation vacated because vendors were not employees
A newspaper vendor was struck and killed while selling papers near a Florida intersection before dawn. OSHA cited AAA Delivery Services for not providing reflective vests, but AAA argued that the vendors were independent contractors rather than its employees. Applying the common-law employment…
Weirton Steel Corporation
Willful carbon-monoxide item affirmed and clothing item vacated
Weirton Steel employees climbed to a blast furnace's bleeder deck without respirators while carbon-monoxide monitors alarmed at 150 parts per million or more and, on one trip, exceeded the monitor's 1,999-parts-per-million capacity. The Commission held that the respiratory-protection standard was…
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…
BF Goodrich Hilton Davis, Inc.
One PPE citation affirmed after a boilout burn injury, remaining items vacated
BF Goodrich Hilton Davis makes color pigments and dyes at a Cincinnati plant, where large dryers are periodically cleaned with a hot, corrosive soap-and-water "boilout." A third-shift operator was burned over 47 percent of his body when boilout contents at about 116 degrees Celsius splashed on him…
Oxford Mining, Inc.
Commission vacates PPE and hazard-training citations, finding OSHA preempted by MSHA
Oxford Mining did reclamation work at an abandoned bauxite mine site in Arkansas, where employees handled Alroc, an alkaline treated pot-liner material used to surface haul roads and fill the pit. OSHA cited Oxford for two serious violations: not providing personal protective equipment and not…
JTM Industries, Inc.
OSHA citations vacated because MSHA had authority
JTM performed reclamation work at a former open-pit bauxite mine and handled alkaline Alroc material on haul roads and in the excavated pit. OSHA cited the company for inadequate protective equipment and hazard-communication training. The Commission held that the reclamation site remained a mine…
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…
C-Post
Willful lockout and guarding citations cut to serious after a small fence-post maker's amputation injury
C-Post is a small Montana company that makes wooden fence posts and furniture legs from logs, employing about 10 people. After a worker's left hand was severed in a doweler machine, OSHA inspected and issued a long list of serious, willful, repeat, and other-than-serious citations covering…
New York State Electric & Gas Corp.
PPE citations vacated because employer knowledge was not proved
New York State Electric & Gas Corporation sent a two-person crew to install residential gas service in Binghamton, New York. An OSHA compliance officer saw one crew member operating a jackhammer without eye protection and later determined that he also lacked protective footwear, although both forms…
Gulf Hauling & Construction, Inc.
PPE-training and eyewash items affirmed, most items vacated after a fatal chemical-burn accident
Gulf Hauling & Construction is a family-owned Mobile, Alabama company that hauls paper-processing waste for the International Paper plant. An employee was found on the concrete waste pad in black liquor solids, a caustic material, and died several weeks later from complications of chemical burns…
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…
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…
CMH Material Handling, LLC
Elevated-platform fall violations affirmed
A CMH Material Handling employee died after falling from a 40-foot platform while replacing bolts on an overhead crane system at an aircraft manufacturing facility. The platform lacked standard guardrails in work areas, and employees did not consistently use the body harnesses CMH supplied. Judge…
Lukens Steel Company
Commission vacates PPE citation after withdrawal
The Secretary notified the Commission that he was withdrawing the only remaining item, a serious citation alleging a personal-protective-equipment violation. The notice stated that no other issues remained in the case. The Commission treated the notice as a motion and vacated the citation item and…
Ormet Primary Aluminum Corporation
Commission vacates withdrawn PPE item
The Secretary notified the Commission that he was withdrawing the only remaining item, an other-than-serious citation alleging a personal-protective-equipment violation. The notice stated that no other issues remained. The Commission treated the notice as a motion and vacated the citation item and…
Union Tank Car Company
Commission rejects unexplained PPE payment interpretation
Union Tank Car Company required employees at its railcar repair facility to buy their own safety shoes and welding gloves while subsidizing metatarsal guards. OSHA cited the company on the theory that the word “provide” in the general PPE standard required employers to pay for the equipment. The…
Yellow Freight Systems, Inc.
DOT rules did not preempt OSHA spill protections
OSHA cited Yellow Freight after hazardous-material spills at its Colorado freight terminal. The Commission held that the governing transportation statute expressly prevented Department of Transportation actions from preempting OSHA enforcement for the cited working conditions. It remanded the…
Montana Sulphur and Chemical Co.
Commission vacates the two hydrogen-sulfide respirator items after the Secretary withdraws them
Montana Sulphur and Chemical Company makes chemicals, including liquefied hydrogen sulfide, at a plant in Billings, Montana. After a 1994 inspection, OSHA cited the company and the parties settled every item except two serious ones: that loading-crew employees did not wear supplied-air respirators…
Montana Sulphur and Chemical Co.
March 26 dismissal order with the full ALJ decision vacating both hydrogen-sulfide items
Montana Sulphur and Chemical Company makes chemicals, including liquefied hydrogen sulfide, at a plant in Billings, Montana. After a 1994 inspection, OSHA and the company settled every citation item except two serious ones: that loading-crew employees did not wear supplied-air respirators when…
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…
Boston Towing and Transportation Co.
Marine-access citations vacated for lack of fair notice
Boston Towing operated a marine terminal in Quincy, Massachusetts, where employees sometimes used a ladder between a pier and a barge at extreme low tide. OSHA investigated after a weekend watchman was found in the water near a ladder, although no one witnessed how he fell. The Secretary withdrew…
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…
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…
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…
Hackney, Inc.
General PPE rule requires safety belts for crane fall hazards
Hackney manufactured carbon steel flanges at a Mississippi plant where maintenance employees regularly worked on an overhead crane and trolley about 33 feet above the ground. Some work areas lacked guardrails, and employees did not use safety belts even though the company had belts available and…
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…
Armco Steel Co., L.P.
Crane-runway and cylinder citations vacated
Armco Steel operated a steel-manufacturing facility in Middletown, Ohio. OSHA cited an unguarded crane runway 34 feet above the floor under the open-sided-platform standard, alternatively alleged that employees needed safety belts and lanyards, and cited an unsecured acetylene cylinder under the…
Air Plastics, Inc.
Mixed ruling on pit hazards and chemical training
Air Plastics manufactured fiberglass tanks using molds mounted over production pits that employees entered during setup. The judge vacated a failure-to-abate general duty clause citation alleging hazardous confined-space atmospheres because OSHA did not prove that employees faced a significant risk…
Metal Recycling Company
Scrap-yard hazards yield mixed ruling and $400 penalty
OSHA inspected Metal Recycling Company's three-employee scrap-metal facility in El Paso, Texas, and issued a serious citation with multiple items. The judge affirmed serious violations involving unsecured access stairs, an exit leading into a blocked and fenced yard, obstructed aisles, hazardous…
Conagra Flour Milling Company
Commission splits flour-mill safety citations and assesses $500
Conagra operated a flour-milling facility in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania, where OSHA cited battery servicing, powered industrial trucks, machine guarding, compressed-air cleaning, and grain-handling practices. The Commission vacated the personal-protective-equipment and eyewash items because OSHA's…
Hamilton Fixture
Commission upholds expanded inspection and assesses $2,450
Hamilton Fixture manufactured wooden store-display fixtures at a plant in Hamilton, Ohio, with about 350 employees. OSHA began with a union complaint about safety practices and expanded the inspection plant-wide after the compliance officer calculated a lost-workday injury rate about three times…
Waldon Health Care Center & ARA Woodlake Nursing Home
Hepatitis B citations vacated
ARA Living Centers operated the Waldon Health Care Center in Louisiana and the Woodlake Nursing Home in Texas. OSHA alleged that nurses and nursing assistants faced hepatitis B transmission through contact with blood or other bodily fluids and proposed offering the vaccine to exposed employees…
Stone Container Corp.
Boiler-area protective equipment citation vacated
Stone Container operated a paper and linerboard mill with a black liquor recovery boiler in Montana. A boiler explosion burned three employees, and one employee later died from the injuries. OSHA cited the company for not requiring protective clothing and self-contained respirators during boiler…
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney
Commission approves plating-shop settlement
Pratt & Whitney operated a plating shop at its West Palm Beach facility, where two maintenance employees were splashed with a cyanide solution during equipment-relocation work. OSHA cited alleged training, protective-equipment, warning-sign, labeling, and hazard-communication violations. The judge…
Farrens Tree Surgeons, Inc.
Roadside PPE citation vacated for insufficient proof
Farrens Tree Surgeons employees were placing cones and warning signs beside a two-lane highway before clearing brush under power lines. One employee was struck and killed by a driver who was blinded by the rising sun. OSHA cited Farrens because the crew was not wearing brightly colored vests or…
AMR Services Company
Airport ground-services settlement approved
AMR Services provided aircraft ground support at Atlanta's airport, where a wingwalker wearing dark clothing was struck and killed by an AMR fuel truck during nighttime operations. OSHA cited AMR for not providing reflective clothing. The judge vacated the citation, finding that the FAA's exercise…
Well Solutions, Inc.
Open-fields evidence reinstates rig-safety violations
An OSHA inspector first visited Well Solutions' oil-well rig without a warrant and observed unguarded platforms and employees without hard hats from an accessible road and field. The judge suppressed those observations and vacated the citations. The Commission held that the open-fields doctrine…
Trinity Industries, Inc.
Electrical penalty cut but four serious violations upheld
Trinity Industries manufactured chemical-processing tanks at its Sharonville, Ohio plant. The Commission upheld serious violations for failing to protect an employee walking on top of a tank from a nine-foot fall, leaving a compressed-gas cylinder without a valve cap, and allowing welding arcs to…
Consolidated Freightways Corp.
Corrosive-dye PPE violation was serious
Consolidated Freightways employees handled and cleaned up a leaking drum of corrosive powdered dye without suitable personal protective equipment. Supervisors knew about the spill but left untrained workers to decide what protection to use, and the company's safety guides were not adequately…
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.