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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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…
CRS Emergency Vehicles, Inc.
Saw-guard items affirmed, restart item vacated
CRS manufactured and upfitted security and safety vehicles at a plant on Osage tribal land in Oklahoma. Judge Stephen J. Simko, Jr. held that the Occupational Safety and Health Act applied because CRS was not tribally owned, sold products worldwide, and was engaged in commercial rather than purely…
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…
Cherry Hill Stairs, Inc., t/a Harmonson Stairs
Repeated refusal to guard table saw results in $12,000 willful penalty
Cherry Hill Stairs, trading as Harmonson Stairs, operated a custom stair-building shop in New Jersey. Employees used a hand-fed circular ripsaw without the required hood, spreader, and anti-kickback fingers, even though the guarding unit was nearby. The company argued that guards were infeasible…
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…
The Specialist of the South, Inc.
$3,000 penalty affirmed for 39 serious items
The Specialists operated a small furniture repair, refinishing, and upholstery business using flammable and toxic materials. OSHA cited 39 serious violations, primarily involving fire and explosion hazards, and proposed $9,900 in penalties. An ALJ affirmed every serious item but assessed a combined…
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…
Southwestern Electric Power Company
Unguarded lathe chucks remain de minimis
Southwestern Electric Power Company did not guard the rotating chucks on two lathes, contrary to the general machine-guarding standard. The judge reduced the alleged nonserious violations to de minimis because the hazards were too slight to require abatement or a penalty. The Commission affirmed…
Shelvie Summerlin, d/b/a A & S Millworks and Rentals
Unguarded table-saw violation affirmed
A & S Millworks and Rentals operated two 10-inch hand-fed crosscut table saws without blade guards. The company argued that standard guards were impractical and could create hazards during specialized cuts such as dadoing and moulding. The Commission held that impracticability alone was not a…
Lumb Woodworking Company, Inc.
Repeated table-saw guarding violation affirmed
Lumb Woodworking operated three unguarded table saws and argued that the required guards would create a greater hazard. Its president said guards hid the blades, collected sawdust, jammed material, and could contribute to kickback. The Commission found that this testimony did not explain why a…
Union Pacific Railroad Co.
Proposed FRA rules do not displace OSHA
Union Pacific faced a failure-to-correct matter and citations involving machine guarding, woodworking equipment, respiratory protection, posting, and other conditions. It argued that an advance notice of proposed Federal Railroad Administration rulemaking exempted it from OSHA requirements. The…
Interstruct Corporation, a Division of International Basic Economy Corporation
Crane-record failure to abate affirmed, saw-guard charge dismissed
Interstruct Corporation manufactured prestressed and post-stressed concrete products in Puerto Rico. OSHA alleged that the company had not abated earlier violations involving a hand-fed ripsaw guard, truck-crane inspection records, and overhead-crane inspections. The judge dismissed the saw-guard…
Morris Enterprises, Inc.
Saw-guard and stair-railing items affirmed
The Commission reviewed two items the judge had vacated at Morris Enterprises' building-supply operation. An unguarded table saw was available for employee use, and saw trimmings, the company president's testimony, and the walkaround representative's statement supported a finding that it was…
Mikel Company, Inc.
Machine-guarding items affirmed in part and penalties reduced
Mikel Company manufactured high-style furniture using saws, routers, a jointer, and a root shaper. The judge vacated the root-shaper item because the evidence showed a hold-down guard was installed, but affirmed jointer and router guarding violations with penalties of $30 and $35. Four saw-guarding…
S. E. Smith & Sons
Saw-guard violations affirmed with a reduced penalty
S. E. Smith & Sons contested five nonserious items and five serious machine-guarding items involving table and radial saws. The employer argued that each saw operator should decide whether to use the required safety devices. The judge rejected that position because compliance with the standards…
Diamond International Corp.
Guarding citations upheld with reduced penalties
OSHA cited Diamond International for unguarded power-transmission equipment, unguarded saw blades, and stairways without handrails at its Idaho sawmill. The judge found nine power-transmission guarding violations but reduced their classification from serious to nonserious because employee exposure…
William W. Turnbull, d/b/a Turnbull Millwork Co.
Table-saw citation affirmed and penalty reduced
Turnbull Millwork, a four-employee kitchen-cabinet manufacturer, used two hand-fed table saws without the required guards. Its initial pro se notice contested only the $500 penalty, but later filings made clear that the employer had intended to contest the citation too. The Commission held that…
Johnson Brothers Planing Mill, Inc.
Millwork machine-guarding citations affirmed
Johnson Brothers manufactured wood products using radial and table saws, sanding equipment, belt-driven machinery, and electrical equipment with several cited guarding or grounding deficiencies. The serious citation involved unguarded lower portions of two radial-saw blades and an unguarded…
C & R Cabinet Company
Failure-to-abate and posting penalties assessed
A follow-up inspection found six unabated machine-guarding violations involving ripsaws, radial saws, sanders, and a conveyor. C & R Cabinet had corrected seven other items and had ordered some missing guard parts, so the judge reduced the proposed $1,675 failure-to-abate penalty to $825. The…
Allstate Trailer Sales, Inc.
Penalties reassessed after citations became final
Allstate Trailer Sales manufactured recreational vehicles at a Seattle plant. OSHA issued a serious citation involving unguarded saws and an eleven-item nonserious citation covering posting, recordkeeping, machine guarding, electrical grounding, and eye protection. Allstate's timely notice…
Charles A. Davison & Margaret S. Davison, dba Davison Wood Products
Machine-guarding items affirmed without penalties
OSHA cited a small woodworking business for unguarded sanding machines, a jointer, saw belts and pulleys, and a rip saw, along with alleged electrical, spray-booth ventilation, and first-aid violations. The judge affirmed the four machine-guarding items without penalties. He vacated the electrical…
Frankford Woolen Mills, Inc.
Tenant floor-load item vacated and $335 assessed
Frankford Woolen Mills was cited for 24 non-serious conditions involving housekeeping, stairs, ladders, exits, eye protection, fire extinguishers, machinery, compressed air, welding equipment, electrical grounding, and aisles. The administrative law judge affirmed 19 items, vacated five, and…
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.