🧪 TEST MODE ACTIVE Use test card: 4242 4242 4242 4242

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.

5,577 decisions and counting · Latest decision July 17, 2026
4 decisions 29 C.F.R. § 1910.252(a)(3)(i)

No decisions match these filters

Try a different search term or clear the filters.

ALJ

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…

March 26, 2009 ·Nancy J. Spies
Mixed result
COMM

Active Oil Service, Inc.

Fatal tank-vault violations affirmed, with one item reduced to serious

An Active Oil Service employee was killed and a foreman was seriously burned when an oxy-acetylene torch ignited vapors while they worked in an underground vault above a pyro-oil tank. The Commission held that the shallow vault was still a permit-required confined space because entry and exit were…

April 20, 2005
Modified
ALJ

Mid City Motors

Settlement affirms four serious items with a $750 total penalty

OSHA inspected Mid City Motors and issued a citation alleging three serious violations with proposed penalties totaling $2,850. When the hearing opened, the parties reached an agreement resolving every issue. Their stipulation, incorporated into the order by reference, treated the third item as two…

July 20, 2000 ·Michael H. Schoenfeld
Settled
ALJ

Beall Construction, Inc., d/b/a Tiger Manufacturing

Settlement resolves two consolidated cases, $1,000 penalty

Beall Construction, Inc., doing business as Tiger Manufacturing in Dallas, Texas, faced OSHA citations in two separate cases covering welding, respirator, flammable-liquid, spray-finishing, and electrical safety standards. At a June 28, 1994 hearing, the parties used a short settlement discussion…

September 9, 1994 ·Stanley M. Schwartz
Settled

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.