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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Masis Staffing Solutions, LLC
Unstable truss-bundle citation affirmed
Masis Staffing supplied temporary workers to a roof-truss manufacturer in Gainesville, Florida. A forklift operator left a 2,000-pound bundle of trusses standing vertically and unsupported for about ten minutes, and it fell onto a Masis worker who was securing another bundle to a trailer. The judge…
Magic Valley Crushing & Excavation, LLC, dba The Rock Yard
Unstable shelving storage violation affirmed
Magic Valley Crushing operated The Rock Yard, an Idaho landscaping-supply store with an overstock storage area. After a manager relocated several metal shelving units, the units were not bolted back together and heavy boxes of hardware were stacked more heavily on the upper shelves. One unit leaned…
Walmart, Inc.
Unsecured pallet-storage citation affirmed on remand
Walmart stored merchandise pallets on high back-to-back racks at a New York distribution center where forklifts regularly tipped pallets and caused products to fall. An employee suffered neck and spinal injuries when merchandise fell from a pallet dislodged by a forklift. After the Second Circuit…
Walmart, Inc.
Rack-mounted pallets were not stored in tiers
Walmart stored merchandise pallets on separate levels of selective racks at a New York distribution center. An order filler was struck by containers that fell after a forklift bumped a pallet in the adjoining rack, and OSHA cited Walmart for failing to secure material stored in tiers. The ALJ…
Pharmasol Corporation
Warehouse storage violations affirmed, forklift items split
Pharmasol manufactured pharmaceutical and personal-care products and used powered industrial trucks in its warehouse. The judge vacated a general duty clause item because OSHA did not prove that the trucks could pass beneath rack beams and expose operators to the alleged crushing hazard. He…
General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc.
Stacked-crate citation vacated
General Dynamics Land Systems stored Stryker vehicle parts in stacked crates at an Alabama warehouse. Seven crates fell from an 11-foot stack while an employee was taking inventory, causing serious injuries. The judge found that the crates were not interlocked and that the stack was not stable and…
Haberle Steel, Inc.
Unsecured steel plate citation affirmed
Haberle Steel stored large steel plates on edge in an outdoor rack at its Pennsylvania fabrication shop. An employee died after a nearly vertical plate tipped and pinned him against another plate. OSHA cited the company under the material-storage standard because nothing prevented that plate from…
Sanderson Farms, Inc.
Unstable freezer pallet storage resulted in a $6,300 penalty
Sanderson Farms stored 2,200-to-2,500-pound pallets of frozen chicken on an aging freezer rack system with frequently damaged legs and little margin for placement error. A maintenance employee died from smoke inhalation and burns after beginning to cut a damaged rack leg while loaded pallets…
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…
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…
Trinity Industries, Inc. -- Plant 22, and its successors
Steel-tank storage citations vacated
Trinity Industries manufactured large steel tanks at its Fort Worth, Texas, plant and stored partly finished tanks close together on wooden supports and chocks between production steps. During lifting, one tank caught and raised the tank in front of it, dislodging a chock and causing that tank to…
Drexel Chemical Co.
Generic safety programs found inadequate
OSHA cited Drexel Chemical's manufacturing plant for permit-space, lockout, and material-storage violations. The Commission vacated the workplace-evaluation item because a qualified manager familiar with the plant had evaluated its spaces, and it vacated the warning-sign item because access was…
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…
Gary Concrete Products, Inc.
Unstable concrete piling storage was a serious violation
Gary Concrete Products manufactured and stored large concrete pilings at a Georgia worksite. An improperly stacked group of pilings collapsed and killed a rigger while employees were moving pilings with a crane. The Commission found that the company could have discovered the unstable stack because…
Clement Food Company
Stacking, pulley, and platform items affirmed; forklift and fan items vacated
Clement Food bottled food products at an Oklahoma City plant and contested several storage, forklift, machine, electrical, and fall-protection items. The Commission affirmed a citation for a leaning 15-foot stack of boxes and a serious pulley-guarding violation, reducing the pulley penalty to $70…
Noranda Aluminum Inc.
Abatement process ordered after stacking violation affirmed
OSHA cited Noranda Aluminum after an investigation found that heavy aluminum billets were not stored securely against rolling or collapse. The judge affirmed a serious violation and a $400 penalty, and the Eighth Circuit upheld both after Noranda sought review. The court vacated the original…
Yosemite Park and Curry Co.
Electrical and repeat housekeeping violations affirmed
An inspection of Yosemite Park and Curry's transportation garage produced six contested items involving a roof leak, an extension cord, gasoline cans, housekeeping, tire storage, and a stair-landing obstruction. The judge affirmed the defective extension-cord item because untagged equipment stored…
Request Records, Inc.
Ladder, exit-sign, and storage violations affirmed
OSHA cited Request Records for leaving an unmarked defective ladder accessible near high storage shelves, failing to mark an exit route, and stacking boxed records so they leaned toward an employee aisle. The judge found that buying a replacement ladder did not remove the old ladder from service…
Stephenson Enterprises, Inc.
Eight plant-safety items reinstated
Stephenson Enterprises manufactured men's and boys' pants at a Georgia plant cited for several housekeeping, fire-protection, electrical, storage, machine-guarding, and sewing-machine conditions. The judge vacated the contested items after finding OSHA's evidence too conclusory. The Commission held…
Railroad Salvage of Connecticut, Inc.
Failure-to-abate items affirmed and penalties reduced
Railroad Salvage did not contest an original citation covering blocked egress, poorly identified and mounted fire extinguishers, and hazardous material stacking, so those violations became final. A reinspection found that some cited locations remained uncorrected. The judge affirmed four…
Weyerhaeuser Company
Storage item affirmed and noise citation vacated
OSHA cited noise exposure near a corrugator at Weyerhaeuser's Maine fiberboard plant, unstable stacks of corrugated cartons, and allegedly unguarded machine parts. The Commission affirmed vacation of the noise item because a 15-to-20-minute sample ranging from 97 to 102 dBA was not shown to…
Lovell Clay Products Company
Unstable brick-storage item reinstated
Lovell Clay Products mined clay and manufactured bricks and tile at its Billings plant. One citation item described unstable brick storage but mistakenly identified the housekeeping subsection, while the complaint identified the secure-storage subsection without changing the underlying facts. The…
St. Mary's Cotton Mill, Division of Leshner Corporation
Nineteen plant violations affirmed
St. Mary's Cotton Mill admitted 19 nonserious conditions involving compressed air, machine guards, fire extinguishers, electrical grounding, exits, floor openings, storage, housekeeping, and other plant equipment. OSHA proposed penalties on ten of the items, totaling $375, and no penalties on the…
Fineberg Packing Company, Inc.
OSHA sanitation item reinstated despite USDA rules
Fineberg Packing, a meat processor, received a nine-item nonserious citation covering electrical, exit, fire-protection, housekeeping, sanitation, and ladder conditions. The judge vacated the sanitation item because Department of Agriculture rules under the Wholesome Meat Act also regulated plant…
Ventre Packing Co., Inc.
Citation vacated because the cooler top was not a platform
Ventre Packing used the top of an eight-to-nine-foot walk-in cooler extension to store pieces of a disassembled metal frame. OSHA cited the company because the elevated surface lacked perimeter guardrails, and the administrative law judge affirmed the citation with a $25 penalty. The Commission…
American Motors Corporation
Welding-ventilation item vacated and $254 assessed
OSHA cited American Motors for 29 non-serious conditions at its Milwaukee automobile plant. After withdrawals, admissions, and a hearing, the administrative law judge affirmed 17 items, vacated 12, and assessed $279. Commission review focused on a welding station where no mechanical ventilation was…
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.