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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C Pacific Corporation, dba Five Star Builders
Three scaffold violations affirmed with a grouped penalty
C Pacific Corporation was a construction subcontractor installing aluminum cladding on a car dealership in Puerto Rico, Saipan. OSHA found employees working on a four-level scaffold with incomplete planking, missing stair rails, and missing guardrails, creating fall exposures of 5 to 20 feet. The…
RJCL Corporation, d/b/a RNV Construction
Mixed ruling on scaffold and electrical citations
OSHA inspected RNV Construction at a residence and a commercial building in Saipan and issued scaffold and electrical citations carrying $44,754 in proposed penalties. The judge found that RNV Construction employed the residence workers and rejected its challenges to both inspections. Most items…
E&N Construction, Inc.
Four scaffold items affirmed and penalties reduced
E&N Construction employees installed brick veneer from a two-tier scaffold at an apartment project. OSHA cited inadequate platform planking, unsafe frame climbing, failure to inspect the scaffold before the shift, missing fall protection above 10 feet, and a missing cross-brace. The judge affirmed…
Guzzo Masonry Inc.
Scaffold safety items mostly affirmed
Guzzo Masonry employees performed stucco repair from a two-level scaffold at a Delaware home. OSHA observed an employee working about 14 feet above the ground on a partially planked platform without guardrails, and another employee used the scaffold cross-braces for access because no ladder was…
Samsson Construction, Incorporated
Scaffold violations affirmed with $30,000 in penalties
Samsson Construction was the general contractor for a Florida retail construction project where employees used an incompletely planked scaffold without required guardrails and climbed the scaffold frame for access. A stucco-crew supervisor knew the planking and guardrail setup did not comply with…
Georgia Carolina Stucco, Inc.
Three repeat scaffold violations affirmed
Georgia Carolina Stucco used another contractor's scaffolds while applying stucco to an assisted-living facility in Evans, Georgia. Three employees, including the company's foreman and competent person, worked as high as 20 feet 9 inches on platforms that were not fully planked and had no…
LJC Dismantling Corp.
Overhead-hazard item affirmed, scaffold items vacated
LJC Dismantling employees took apart a rooftop water tank while another employee worked below on a scaffold. A cut metal tank strap swung around, struck the scaffold worker, and caused him to fall to the roof. The Commission vacated an improper-planking item because the scaffold existed only…
Applied Masonry, Inc.
Repeat scaffold access and planking items affirmed
Applied Masonry used fabricated-frame scaffolds while renovating a city courthouse. An employee climbed cross braces to reach an upper platform and walked across platforms that were not fully planked. The judge rejected the company's claim that the scaffold was being dismantled because the employee…
NLJ Builders, Inc.
Controlling contractor held responsible for unsafe scaffold
NLJ Builders subcontracted carpentry work at a Florida bank project and supplied the subcontractor with a scaffold owned by NLJ. A subcontractor employee worked about 15 feet above the ground on a platform that was less than half planked, lacked a firm base and guardrails, and had not been erected…
Avcon, Inc., Vasilios Saites, and Nicholas Saites
Fall-protection violations largely affirmed with $77,350 penalty
OSHA cited numerous hazards during construction of an eighteen-story concrete building. The Commission dismissed Bill and Nick Saites individually because the Secretary added them after the six-month limitations period and did not show that their original omission resulted from a mistake that would…
Standard Building Company, Inc., and Standard Systems, Inc.
Three items affirmed against one company and all items vacated against the other
Standard Building managed a restaurant renovation, and Standard Systems was identified as a related stucco contractor. The judge found that a subcontractor owner acted in part as Standard Building's site superintendent but lacked scaffold and powered-industrial-truck safety training. Standard…
Smoot Construction
Scaffold and trench violations affirmed with penalty reduction
Smoot was the prime contractor on a university construction project where employees worked from incompletely planked scaffolds and a subcontractor's employees entered an inadequately sloped trench. The Commission held that the full-planking exception did not apply because Smoot's employees were…
Stuck in the Mud
Scaffold violations affirmed after jurisdiction challenge
Thomas Slingluff, doing business as Stuck in the Mud, performed stucco work from an inadequately protected scaffold in Colorado. He admitted the scaffold conditions but argued that he was not an employer engaged in commerce and therefore was outside the OSH Act. The judge found that Slingluff hired…
Artistic Enterprises, Inc.
Five scaffold and hard-hat violations affirmed
Two stucco workers used a two-level scaffold without hard hats, full planking, safe ladder access, fall protection, or toeboards at an Alabama hotel project. Artistic Enterprises argued that another company employed the workers, but the judge rejected that claim based on the workers' statements…
N. Picco & Sons Contracting Co., Inc.
Scaffold and housekeeping violations affirmed
N. Picco & Sons was constructing a three-story addition to a school in Bronxville, New York. OSHA observed two employees working 36 and 42 feet above ground on a scaffold with improper fall-arrest anchorage, incomplete planking, an excessive gap from the building, and no suitable access. The judge…
Ingram Plastering and Company, Inc.
Scaffold and hard-hat violations resulted in $10,800 in penalties
Ingram Plastering employees performed exterior stucco work from scaffolding up to about 23 feet high. The judge found that work levels were not fully planked, no qualified competent person inspected the scaffold before shifts, employees did not consistently wear hard hats, and one employee lacked…
Watkins Engineers & Constructors, Inc.
General contractor's scaffold citations vacated because the scaffold was being taken down
Watkins Engineers & Constructors was the general contractor building its own office in Tallahassee, Florida. A glass subcontractor's crew was up on a scaffold near a corner of the finished building when an OSHA compliance officer inspected. OSHA cited Watkins, the general contractor, for three…
Nu-Waay Enterprises, Inc.
Safety-program, first-aid, and fall-protection citations affirmed after a 24-foot fall
Nu-Waay Enterprises is a small construction company that built an elevated walkway and observation platform at a national wildlife refuge in Mississippi. While a crew was removing the formwork under the finished platform, a stuck I-beam broke loose, catapulting a worker who fell about 24 feet and…
Big Apple Wrecking and Construction Corp.
Willful scaffold fall-protection citation affirmed at $56,000, most serious items upheld
Big Apple Wrecking & Construction is a New York City demolition contractor. In mid-1998 OSHA inspected its demolition of a six-story theater building, where crews worked on the top level of scaffolding surrounding the structure. OSHA issued a serious citation, a repeat citation, and a willful…
McDevitt Street Bovis, Inc.
General contractor liable for a subcontractor's scaffold violations
McDevitt Street Bovis was the general contractor building a two-story medical center in Douglas, Georgia. During a 1997 inspection, OSHA found that a scaffold used by employees of subcontractor CPD Plastering was not fully planked, lacked cross-bracing, guardrails, and safe access, and had not been…
The Haskell Company
Scaffold items affirmed for hazards exposing its own employee
The Haskell Company was the general contractor expanding a pilot training center in Savannah, Georgia. OSHA found Haskell's employee working 12 feet above the ground on an exterior tubular-frame scaffold with wide gaps in the planking, missing guardrails, and no access ladder. The superintendent…
Hollywood Pool & Spa
Scaffold violations grouped with a $1,500 penalty
Hollywood Pool & Spa maintained swimming pools and was constructing its own building in Vestavia Hills, Alabama. OSHA cited five serious scaffold conditions involving incomplete planking, inadequate support, improper access, lack of a competent-person inspection, and missing fall protection. The…
New Age International
Scaffold violations affirmed with reduced penalties totaling $825
New Age International performed masonry and stucco work at a San Antonio U-Haul project where two workers used an incompletely planked rolling scaffold without proper access or full guardrails. New Age argued that the workers belonged to an independent subcontractor, but Judge Stanley M. Schwartz…
Malu Construction Co., and its successors
Jury-rigged scaffold items affirmed for $8,000
Malu called its framing workers independent subcontractors, but it supplied their scaffold and safety equipment, assigned their work, provided training, and retained authority to stop work. Judge Stanley M. Schwartz therefore treated them as Malu employees under the common-law control test. OSHA…
Groesbeck Masonry, Inc.
Scaffold decking, guardrail, and training items affirmed
Two Groesbeck Masonry employees washed an acid-cleaned brick wall from a scaffold 10 to 12 feet high while straddling two planks, without full decking or guardrails. A third employee dismantled the level above, but the workers had not been specifically trained to wait until the lower level was…
Texas A.C.A., Inc., and its successors
Scaffold citations vacated for foreman misconduct
Texas A.C.A. employees performed stucco work from an incomplete scaffold with missing bracing, incomplete planking, unstable supports, unsafe access, and inadequate fall protection. The foreman knew the crew was assigned to roof work and that the scaffold was unfinished, but moved them onto it…
Bast Hatfield, Inc.
Scaffold and ladder items affirmed
Bast Hatfield employees performed masonry work from scaffolds at a church construction project in New York. Judge Robert A. Yetman denied Bast's Fourth Amendment challenge because the OSHA inspector observed the work from a parking area that remained open to church visitors and the public. He…
New England Synthetic Systems, Inc.
Scaffold and electrical violations affirmed for $30,000
New England Synthetic Systems replaced exterior walls at an apartment complex in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Judge Robert A. Yetman affirmed violations involving unprotected temporary electrical wiring, lifelines tied to vent curbing and exposed to sharp edges, incomplete scaffold planking, unsafe…
West Winds Construction, Inc.
Scaffold planking and fall-protection violations affirmed
West Winds Construction employees repaired plaster from partially dismantled scaffold platforms that were not fully planked and had no guardrails. The workers faced falls of about 18 to 20 feet, and the site foreman directed and observed the work. Chief Judge Irving Sommer imputed the foreman's…
King Concrete Construction Company, Inc.
Willful fall violations and settlement yield $18,200
King Concrete performed concrete work on a barracks project at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. The company admitted that employees working on and near leading edges lacked required fall protection, but disputed OSHA's willful classification and proposed $49,000 penalty. The judge found the violations…
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.