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.
Riverdale Mills Corporation
EAJA fee application denied
Riverdale Mills manufactures coated wire mesh at a facility in Northbridge, Massachusetts. The underlying OSHA cases followed an employee's serious injury in a coating line and produced a mixed merits decision that affirmed three citation items and vacated several lockout/tagout and…
Johnson Brass & Machine Foundry, Inc.
Fall and lockout violations affirmed
Johnson Brass operated pit-mounted centrifugal casting machines at its Wisconsin foundry. An employee was seriously injured when his clothing caught on a rotating die while he cleaned it from inside a spinner pit. OSHA cited fall protection, lockout-tagout, training, and machine-guarding violations…
U.S. Postal Service, dba Portland Processing and Distribution Center
Lockout and machine-guarding citations vacated
OSHA inspected the U.S. Postal Service's Portland processing and distribution center after a complaint and cited lockout, lockout-training, and machine-guarding conditions. The three contested items carried proposed penalties totaling $148,137. The judge found the lock-removal standard did not…
Donghee Alabama, LLC
Machine-safety violations affirmed, one instance reclassified
Donghee manufactured automotive fuel tanks at an Auburn, Alabama facility using blow-molding and testing machines. A production manager entered an operating blow-mold machine and suffered a broken foot, while light curtains and laser scanners on four other machines were not functioning. The judge…
Mar-Jac Poultry MS, LLC
Eviscerator guarding and warning-sign violations affirmed
Mar-Jac operated poultry eviscerators at its Hattiesburg, Mississippi processing plant. An employee cleaning chicken parts and viscera around an operating eviscerator was caught in the machine and suffered fatal injuries. The judge found that the machine was unguarded, lacked safety-instruction…
Louisiana-Pacific Corporation and Tyler Wallace
Conveyor machine-guarding citation vacated
Louisiana-Pacific manufactured oriented strand board at a mill where an employee's hand and arm were caught in the ingoing nip point of a trim-waste conveyor while he was cleaning nearby. OSHA alleged that the unguarded nip point violated the machine-guarding standard and proposed a $13,653…
Good Food Concepts, LLC d/b/a Ranch Foods Direct
Meat-grinder guarding and reporting citations affirmed
Good Food Concepts operated a retail meat business where an employee's hand was caught in a meat grinder, resulting in the amputation of four fingers and inpatient hospitalization. OSHA cited the company for failing to guard the grinder and for failing to report the hospitalization within 24 hours…
Denaka Partners, LP, dba Home Rubber Company
Machine-guarding and bloodborne-pathogen violations affirmed
Denaka manufactured rubber products at a New Jersey facility where an employee's sleeve became caught in an operating slitter mill, pulling his arm into the machine and resulting in an amputation. OSHA cited the company for inadequate machine guarding and for failures involving hepatitis B…
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…
Rolly Marine Service Company
Hydraulic-press citations vacated
A Rolly Marine yard foreman died from blunt-force injuries after a metal bar was ejected from a modified hydraulic press and struck his abdomen. OSHA cited the shipyard under the general duty clause for operating a press altered from its original design and under the machine-guarding standard for…
Purvis Industries, LLC, d/b/a Snake River Supply
Conveyor nip-point citation vacated for lack of predictable access
Snake River Supply employees installed a replacement conveyor belt on a customer's potato truck in Idaho. While kneeling near the operating belt to observe its tracking, an employee reached toward the truck for support and mistakenly placed his hand into an unguarded roller nip point, sustaining…
Dover High Performance Plastics, Inc.
Machine-guarding citation narrowed to lathes and reduced to serious
Dover fabricated plastic parts on five computer-controlled lathes and two mills with their access doors open or removed. OSHA cited the company willfully under 29 C.F.R. § 1910.212(a)(1) and proposed a total $49,000 penalty for inadequate machine guarding. The Commission found exposure established…
Wayne Farms, LLC
Machine-guarding citation vacated because the reach-in was not predictable
An operator at Wayne Farms' poultry processing facility sustained serious arm and hand injuries after lifting a breading machine's grate and reaching about 24 inches into its hopper while internal paddles were operating. OSHA cited the company under 29 C.F.R. § 1910.212(a)(1) and proposed an…
Aerospace Testing Alliance
Guarding citation vacated because circumvention was not predictable
An experienced Aerospace Testing Alliance sheet-metal worker crushed the tip of a finger after removing a glove and intentionally placing the finger beneath a guarded hold-down piston on a power shear. OSHA cited the company under 29 C.F.R. § 1910.212(a)(1) and proposed a $6,300 penalty, which the…
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…
Gavilon Grain, LLC
Machine-guarding citation vacated, dust-housekeeping citation affirmed
OSHA inspected Gavilon's corn mill and cited an unguarded rotating shaft bushing and grain-dust accumulations near an outdoor grain leg. The judge vacated the machine-guarding item because employees performing maintenance used a hatch about five feet away while the equipment was locked out, and…
CWP Asset Corp., d/b/a Mister Car Wash
Conveyor machine-guarding violation affirmed
Mister Car Wash moved vehicle-drying work inside a car wash bay near a conveyor system. An employee was hospitalized after his foot entered a gap above the conveyor's moving chain and sprocket. The judge found that this work arrangement made employee exposure to the moving parts reasonably…
Packers Sanitation Services, Inc.
Drain, machine-guarding, and recordkeeping items partly affirmed
Packers Sanitation cleaned equipment at a poultry processing plant where an employee's hand was caught in an operating quill puller, causing a fingertip amputation. The judge affirmed one walking-surface instance because managers stepped over inadequately covered drains in the normal route to the…
Norman W. Fries, Inc. d/b/a Claxton Poultry Farms
Conveyor guarding citation vacated
A poultry-processing employee suffered a compound forearm fracture when his glove and arm were pulled into the underside of a seasoning-line conveyor. OSHA cited Claxton Poultry for failing to guard the conveyor’s ingoing nip-point. The judge found that the accident alone did not establish that…
TMD Staffing
Machine-guarding violations affirmed
TMD Staffing supplied most of the workers at Hightower Metal Works' steel fabrication shop. TMD employees regularly operated an ironworker punch station, two press brakes, and a bending roll without required point-of-operation guards. One employee's finger was crushed while operating the bending…
Southern Hens, Inc.
Lockout and machine-guarding items split
Southern Hens operated a poultry-processing facility where sanitation employees cleaned production machinery during the night shift. An employee's hand was caught in an operating tumbler drive mechanism while she cleaned it, resulting in the permanent loss of part of her thumb. The judge vacated…
HBD / Thermoid, Inc.
Repeat catapuller guarding violation affirmed
HBD / Thermoid manufactured hose using catapuller machines with moving belts that created ingoing nip points. An employee’s arm was caught and crushed in one machine after employees had regularly lifted its small hinged Plexiglas side guard during operation to see and adjust the hose. The judge…
Dentsply US Prosthetics, LLC
Automatic press guarding violation affirmed
Dentsply US Prosthetics manufactured dental products using an automatic press with a Lexan shield that left an opening near the machine's moving parts. A trainee who had worked at Dentsply for about two weeks was operating the press without direct supervision when the machine crushed his hand…
United Launch Alliance, LLC
Launchpad machine-guarding violation affirmed
United Launch Alliance technicians used compressed air to test a piston in a launchpad strut-capture component at Cape Canaveral. A technician's hand slipped into the moving component while he connected an energized air hose, resulting in the amputation of two fingers. The judge found that the…
Sanderson Farms, Inc.
Poultry-line guarding citation vacated
Sanderson Farms operated poultry-processing cone lines with a small gap between a splashguard and a moving conveyor. An employee reached for trapped chicken material and suffered an amputated finger when her hand became caught. OSHA amended its citation to allege a machine-guarding violation under…
Tarkett Alabama, Inc.
Turret-winder guarding citation vacated
Tarkett Alabama used turret winders to roll flooring products onto large cardboard cores. An employee entered a malfunctioning winder and became entangled in a spinning shaft, suffering multiple serious injuries. OSHA cited two winders under the general machine-guarding standard for caught-in and…
Matsu Alabama, Inc., d/b/a A Division of Matcor Automotive, Inc.
Press-safety and repeat machine-guarding citations largely affirmed
Matsu Alabama assigned a temporary worker hired as a janitor to operate and load a mechanical press without adequate press training or supervision. A bent crowder-bar safeguard failed to keep him within the light curtain, and the press caused severe amputation injuries to both hands and one…
MB Consultants, Ltd. d/b/a Murray's Chicken
Lockout, guarding, and chemical-training items largely affirmed
Separate safety and health inspections at Murray's Chicken produced lockout, machine-guarding, hazard-communication, and injury-recording citations. The judge affirmed serious lockout items for inadequate machine-specific procedures, deficient periodic inspections, and insufficient…
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…
Garden Ridge, Store # 46
Compactor item vacated and records item affirmed
Garden Ridge operated a garbage compactor with a hatch-door interlock that was not working properly. Employees normally stood outside the hatch and used a ten-foot board to push trash down a ten-foot chute toward the compaction chamber. The judge vacated the machine-guarding item because the…
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…
J.C. Watson Company
Onion packing operations were subject to general-industry standards
J.C. Watson Company grew onions and operated an Idaho facility that cleaned, sorted, graded, packaged, and prepared them for shipment. After an employee's arm was caught under a moving conveyor, OSHA cited the company under numerous general-industry standards. Watson argued that its packing work…
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…
Trinity Marine Products, Inc.
Five plant-safety items affirmed with $3,050 penalty
OSHA inspected Trinity's Louisiana barge-building plant under a warrant after the company initially denied entry. The judge rejected Trinity's constitutional and inspection-procedure challenges. Safety violations were affirmed for improperly spaced grinder tongue guards, misuse of a junction box…
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…
Gate Concrete Products Co.
Gantry crane guarding items partly vacated
Gate Concrete Products manufactured precast concrete products and used gantry cranes to move them around its Jacksonville plant. An employee lost two fingers after reaching through a missing engine-compartment door while a maintenance supervisor tried to start a stalled crane. The judge vacated the…
Safeway #2555, and its successors
Unguarded bakery-mixer citation vacated for lack of exposure
OSHA cited two unguarded Hobart bakery mixers even though neither mixer was running during the inspection. Safeway employees did not need to add ingredients or put their hands in the bowls while the mixers operated, and the workplace prohibited loose clothing and kept floors clean and dry. The…
South Dakota Beverly Enterprises, Inc. d/b/a Beverly Health Care Bella Vista Nursing Home, and Commercial Management, Inc. d/b/a Beverly Health Care - Ipswich
Mixer-guarding citations vacated for lack of exposure
OSHA cited two South Dakota nursing homes for operating unguarded Hobart A-200 food mixers. Employees generally turned the mixers off before adding ingredients, and the only exception involved pouring liquid from a gallon pitcher through the opening above the bowl. The Commission found no…
Sturm Ruger & Co., Pine Tree Castings Division
Targeted inspection and settlements affirmed
OSHA used injury and illness data from Pine Tree Castings to select the handgun-casting facility for a programmed inspection under a nationwide targeting plan. Sturm Ruger challenged the data survey, inspection warrant, discovery rulings, evidence, and subpoenas. The Commission held that OSHA had…
Marine Propulsion Services, Inc.
Lathe item affirmed, milling-machine item vacated
Marine Propulsion Services operated a mobile machine shop at a Portland ship-repair site. The judge found that an unguarded lathe chuck exposed the machinist to rotating jaws and surfaces that could catch clothing, rags, hair, or fingers, and that an available transparent barrier guard was…
Oberdorfer Industries, Inc.
Foundry citations partly affirmed and partly vacated
Oberdorfer operated an aluminum foundry that OSHA inspected under a local emphasis program for primary-metal industries. The Commission vacated the no-smoking-sign and explosion-proof-wiring items because the Secretary did not perform the testing her expert said was needed to establish dangerous…
G&K Services, and its successors
Training and guard-removal citations affirmed after a commercial dryer amputation
G&K Services ran a commercial laundry in San Antonio, Texas. A worker reaching into an uncovered inspection port on a large Smith Grantham dryer had his arm pulled into the rotating basket and amputated. OSHA issued three serious citations. The judge vacated the general machine-guarding item…
S & G Packaging Company, L.L.C.
Bag-machine guarding violation affirmed
S&G employees adjusted a paper bag machine's paste knob and nozzle while working near two unguarded drive rollers. An employee's hair became entangled in the rollers, causing a severe scalp injury that required several surgeries. The Commission held that the injury established an actual…
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…
Beverly Enterprises-Alabama, Inc.
Unlabeled circuit breakers upheld as a repeat violation, penalty cut to $100
Beverly Enterprises runs a nursing home in Fairhope, Alabama. During an OSHA inspection of its maintenance shop, the compliance officer found the circuit breakers in the panel box were not labeled to show what each one controlled. OSHA cited the company under the electrical standard requiring…
Idaho Trout Processors, Co.
Hatchery guardrail and processing-machine items vacated, lockout item affirmed
Idaho Trout Processors operated a trout hatchery and a nearby fish-processing plant in Buhl, Idaho. OSHA cited unguarded catwalks over fish runs, but the judge found the hatchery was a separate agricultural establishment and that the general-industry walking-surface standard did not apply. He also…
Riverdale Mills Corporation
Glove-selection and machine-guarding violations affirmed after roller injury
Riverdale Mills manufactured wire mesh at its Northbridge, Massachusetts, plant. An operator's glove or shirt sleeve caught on a sharp wire panel while he fed it into a flattening machine, pulling his hand into the rollers and breaking three fingers. The judge found the company's hand-protection…
Cincinnati Incorporated
Bypassed lathe interlock exposed operators to rotating parts and flying chips
Cincinnati Incorporated manufactures metal-forming equipment at its Harrison, Ohio, plant. The company bypassed the interlock on an automated lathe so operators could partially open its door and hold newly threaded bolts with a PVC pipe during the cutoff cycle. The judge found that the door was…
S.K. Wellman Friction Company
Press guarding, training, inspection, and lockout items affirmed
An employee lost a fingertip while clearing a frequently jammed turntable on a Toledo 250-ton press. Judge Ann Z. Cook found an obvious unguarded nip point, inadequate operator training before first use, and no documented program of periodic press inspections, although setup personnel performed…
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…
Evergreen Technologies, Inc.
Machine-guarding citation vacated for unforeseeable access
An Evergreen Technologies lab technician sustained severe injuries when her hair became entangled in an exposed drive screw on a material-testing machine. An accordion guard had been detached for at least three weeks, and Judge Nancy J. Spies found that reasonable diligence would have revealed the…
Auto Shred Recycling, L.L.C.
Conveyor machine-guarding citation vacated
Auto Shred Recycling operated a metal-scrap shredding facility in Pensacola, Florida. After an employee was caught in a conveyor tail pulley and later died from his injuries, OSHA cited the company for inadequate machine guarding. The judge found that a guardrail protected employees during normal…
L & B Products, Corp.
Fifty manufacturing safety items affirmed
L & B Products, Corp. manufactured furniture at a facility in Hudson, New York. OSHA issued 51 serious and other-than-serious items after inspecting eight departments. The allegations covered elevated work areas, exit signs, flammable liquids, fire and lockout training, machine and power-press…
Ohio Cellular Products Corp.
Machine-guarding citation affirmed after fatal rotating-arm accident
Ohio Cellular Products Corp. molds polyethylene foam sports and automotive padding at a plant in Wauseon, Ohio, using large rotating "Rotocast" ovens. In October 1996 a relief operator was fatally injured when her clothing caught on an oven's rotating mold arm while she unloaded foam. OSHA cited…
Caterpillar, Inc.
Press-guarding violations affirmed as repeat and willful
Caterpillar employees frequently operated a 700-ton hydraulic press with its protective light curtain disabled, exposing them to a point-of-operation pinch hazard. The Commission classified that violation as repeated because an earlier final citation involved a substantially similar descending-ram…
Amerisig Southeast, Inc.
Printing-press guarding item classified as repeated
Three Amerisig employees suffered serious hand injuries from unguarded printing or binding machinery over eight months. The citation on review arose when a press unexpectedly reversed during the webbing-up process and pulled an employee's hand into the rollers. The Commission found that an…
Miniature Nut and Screw Corp.
Hearing-conservation lapses are serious violations, but machine-guarding items fail for lack of employee exposure
Miniature Nut and Screw Corporation is a small family-owned maker of die-cast zinc fasteners in Newington, Connecticut, with about ten employees. After a 1993 OSHA inspection, the company was cited for occupational-noise (hearing conservation) violations and numerous machine-guarding violations…
Fibres South, Inc.
Unguarded yarn rollers and missing lockout review produce $4,800
Fibres South, Inc. manufactured synthetic fiber on a line that included a seven-roller Godet machine with exposed in-running nip points. The manufacturer had supplied an interlocked guard, but the company stopped using it in 1986 and required operators to cut fiber wraps from moving rollers with…
Eyelematic Manufacturing Company, Inc.
Power-press, chain, cylinder, and electrical items produce $5,300
Eyelematic Manufacturing Company, Inc. made small metal parts at its Connecticut facility. Administrative Law Judge Richard DeBenedetto vacated a flammable-container item because the Secretary's amendment shifted the theory from approved container design to liquid transfer without evidence fitting…
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.