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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Kevin Dallas Roofing
Default judgment after the employer stopped participating, all citations affirmed
Kevin Dallas Roofing, a sole proprietor in Ohio, was inspected by OSHA and issued a serious citation and an other-than-serious citation totaling $1,650 in proposed penalties. The employer contested the inspection by letter, but then did not participate in the scheduled pre-hearing conference call…
Reflections Tower Service, Inc.
Three violations affirmed and two vacated after a tower-dismantling inspection
Reflections Tower Service dismantled a communications tower in Ohio, where an employee lost two fingers after his glove was caught in hoist equipment. OSHA cited the company under the general duty clause and several construction standards. The judge vacated the general duty clause item because OSHA…
Minelli Construction Company, Inc.
Mixed ruling on bridge rehabilitation safety citations
Minelli Construction Company was a subcontractor performing rehabilitation work on a New York Thruway bridge. OSHA cited the company for alleged hazards involving eye and face protection, hazard communication, fall protection, electrical equipment, suspended scaffolds, access, and gasoline storage…
Louis Sinisgalli, d/b/a Metro Wrecking of Rochester, Inc., et al.
Willful cave-in violation affirmed
Workers were sent to remove pumps from a deep, water-filled excavation at a trailer park owned through one of Louis Sinisgalli's corporations. After the workers reported crumbling walls and unsafe conditions, Sinisgalli directed them to return and complete the work before he would pay them. A…
Valley Construction Company
$750 awarded for unjustified material-safety-data-sheet item
Valley Construction Company sought attorney, consultant, and other expenses under the Equal Access to Justice Act after settling OSHA citations arising from an employee's fatal electrocution. The settlement withdrew three items, reclassified two, and reduced two penalties. The judge found Valley to…
LaForge & Budd Construction Co., Inc.
Two items affirmed by stipulation after remand
OSHA cited LaForge & Budd Construction Co., Inc. after inspecting an Oklahoma construction project. The Commission reversed an earlier ruling that had suppressed the inspection evidence and remanded the case for a hearing on the merits. The parties then stipulated that a nylon-sling item would be…
Franklin E. Skepton
Twelve construction-safety violations affirmed
Franklin E. Skepton was the general contractor for a high-school addition in Pennsylvania. OSHA cited conditions including unguarded floor and wall openings, missing hard hats, unsafe compressed-gas handling, unprotected electrical equipment, unstable and unguarded scaffolds, improper gasoline…
Daak Corporation
Default order remanded for good-cause determination
Daak Corporation did not appear for its scheduled hearing, and the ALJ granted the Secretary a default judgment. After hearing the Secretary's evidence, the judge affirmed 14 construction citations and assessed $7,200 in total penalties. Daak's vice president then petitioned for review and made…
Tri-State Construction, Inc. and National Engineering & Contracting Company
Inspection upheld and bridge-edge item vacated
Tri-State and National worked on a multi-employer interstate-highway rehabilitation project in Cincinnati. The employers challenged OSHA's initial warrantless inspection of an outdoor bridge work area and the later project-wide inspection conducted under a warrant. The Commission held that the…
All Phase Electric & Maintenance, Inc.
Construction citations settled for $865
All Phase Electric & Maintenance performed electrical work at a building construction site where OSHA cited hazard communication, gasoline-container, electrical guarding, and stair-railing conditions. The company president admitted the hazard communication deficiencies and stated that he had been…
Shank-Ohbayashi
One tunnel docket severed, leaving $600 in penalties
Shank-Ohbayashi faced citations from two inspections of its Los Angeles Metro-Rail tunneling project. The cases were tried together, but Commission review was sought only for Docket 88-2674. The Commission severed Docket 88-1711 after finding no party or public interest that warranted further…
Seaward Construction Co., Inc.
Excavation item vacated because moving-ground danger was not proved
Seaward Construction had two employees working in a sewer excavation that contained compacted backfill, some tidal water, limited shoring, concrete-topped banks, and nearby road traffic. OSHA argued that the lack of specified slopes or shoring, together with the site conditions, established a…
Southwestern Roofing & Sheet Metal Co.
Fuel-container item affirmed and roof citation vacated
Southwestern Roofing used an unapproved five-gallon gasoline can to refuel a tar-pot engine even though an approved container was available nearby. The judge affirmed that item without penalty because the can lacked a self-closing lid and flame-arresting screen, creating a preventable fire or…
Underhill Construction Corp. and DIC Concrete Corp., trading as DIC-Underhill, a Joint Venture
Willful high-rise guardrail violation affirmed for $5,000
DIC-Underhill employees worked on the fifteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth floors of a high-rise construction project without required perimeter guardrails or equivalent fall protection. The Commission rejected the argument that the horse-scaffold standard displaced the open-sided-floor standard…
Anchorage Plastering Company
Scaffold citations vacated for lack of commerce proof
OSHA cited alleged scaffold, hard-hat, and flammable-liquid violations while Anchorage Plastering employees applied stucco at an Alaska medical-center project. The judge did not reach the safety merits. He held that the Secretary failed to prove that the small plastering business affected…
Donovan's Blacktop, Inc.
Settlement affirms citations and reduces penalties
Donovan's Blacktop faced citations from inspections of its garage and two Massachusetts construction sites. The cited conditions included poor housekeeping, improper electrical grounding, an unsupported trench, missing eye protection, and gasoline carried in an unapproved container. The parties…
F. F. Green Construction Co., Inc.
Serious trench citation and $900 penalty affirmed
F. F. Green installed a water main in an Alaska trench that was about eleven and a half feet deep in wet, sandy, unstable soil. At least two employees worked where the trench was not adequately shored or sloped, and the citation also included ladder-access and flammable-liquid-container items. The…
Clasten Vaughn, dba Vaughn Roofing Co.
Roof-edge protection citation reinstated
Vaughn Roofing employees worked as close as 18 inches from the edge of an approximately 80-foot-high roof without safety belts, lanyards, or other fall protection. The Commission reinstated the serious personal-protective-equipment citation because the employer accepted that fall protection was…
O'Dell Plumbing, Heating & Cooling, Inc.
Serious trenching violations affirmed
O'Dell Plumbing, Heating & Cooling was installing a storm drain at a hospital construction project in Liberty, Missouri. OSHA cited the company after employees worked in an approximately 14-foot-deep trench whose unstable sides were not adequately supported or sloped and whose spoil piles were…
Angel Construction Co., Inc.
Stairway penalty restored in mixed construction case
Angel Construction was the prime contractor for a multi-building office complex. The judge affirmed eight non-serious violations involving housekeeping, ladders, fuel handling, stairways, elevator openings, a material hoist, and head protection, while dismissing two scaffold and…
Beall Construction Co.
Construction penalties reduced to $620
Beall Construction was the general contractor on a 12-story building project and faced serious, other-than-serious, and failure-to-abate allegations with proposed penalties totaling $35,442. The Commission adopted the judge's mixed disposition of the citations, including a serious violation for a…
Dore Wrecking Co.
Eye-protection item vacated and two penalties reduced
Dore Wrecking was demolishing a building with its own employees and specialized subcontractors. The Commission vacated an eye-protection item because the unprotected drill operator worked for a subcontractor, Dore did not control him, and no Dore employee was shown to be exposed to the condition…
Harvey Wrecking Co.
Demolition-sequence item vacated
Harvey Wrecking was demolishing a 14-story Chicago building where an employee worked beside an unguarded wall opening and equipment operated near floor openings without curbs or stoplogs. The Commission affirmed those two conditions as serious violations of specific standards under section 5(a)(2)…
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.