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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Phoenix Roofing Inc.
Unguarded translucent skylight violation affirmed
Phoenix Roofing Inc. was reroofing a Texas warehouse when an employee fell through an unguarded skylight made of translucent material and died. The Commission held that the term “skylight opening” in the cited standard includes an intact skylight when its material cannot protect a worker from…
ACE Sheeting & Repair Co.
Unguarded skylight citation affirmed
ACE Sheeting & Repair's owner and an employee were replacing rusted metal sheets on a pitched warehouse roof containing about 60 skylight openings. The openings were covered by translucent panels but had no compliant guardrails or covers, and the employee fell through a panel and died. The…
Merit Construction Company
Serious skylight-opening violation and $500 penalty affirmed
Merit Construction was replacing skylight panels when three employees traversed rows of unprotected skylights. Although the workers had been warned not to step on the panels, one worker stepped through an old skylight, fell between 16 and 28 feet, struck a rack, and then hit the concrete floor…
Structural Steel Erectors, Inc., d/b/a Pecosteel-Arizona
Serious skylight violation affirmed
Pecosteel installed a metal roof with four plastic skylight panels that could not support a 200-pound person. The job foreman initially kept the skylights covered with metal sheets but removed those sheets when other roofing material failed to arrive. The next morning the foreman fell through an…
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review, an ALJ decision becomes a final order under 29 U.S.C. § 661(j): it binds the parties in that case but is not binding precedent in other cases.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.