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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Westar Mechanical, Inc.
Serious trench violations and $31,950 penalties affirmed
Westar and a subcontractor installed a sewer line in unprotected excavations on two consecutive days. On the second day, a trench wall collapsed, a water main broke, and two trapped workers drowned as the trench filled with water. The Commission held that separate cave-in and competent-person…
Calang Corporation
Willful trench violations affirmed with $8,000 penalty
Calang employees and the company president worked in a roughly nine-foot-deep sewer trench with sandy soil, inadequate sloping, no shoring, and a spoil pile at the trench edge. Before excavation began, the OSHA inspector told the president that the trench needed approximately one-to-one sloping or…
Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation
Flagman penalty reduced to $25
A Niagara Mohawk mechanic directed traffic near a roadside gas-line job without wearing the required red or orange warning garment. The Commission upheld the judge's credibility findings that he was acting as a flagman and that the foreman knew or should have known about the missing vest. It…
E. S. Albrecht Company
Aerial-lift belt item affirmed and flagman item vacated
E. S. Albrecht performed heavy and highway construction work at a Pennsylvania road site. Two employees worked from an aerial-lift basket without wearing body belts and attaching lanyards to the boom or basket. Although the employer had told employees to use the belts and its project manager…
Wiley N. Jackson Company and Moore Brothers Company, Inc., a Joint Venture, d/b/a Mojac Company
Flagman-garment violation affirmed
Mojac Company was performing road and bridge construction near Interstate 95 and Glebe Road in Arlington, Virginia. An employee directing traffic around a painters' scaffold was not wearing the required red or orange garment when a backing company truck struck and killed him. The company had…
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.