OSHA Fines Township $338K Over Asbestos Handling
- A New Jersey township’s Department of Public Works is facing $338,000 in fines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which issued 17 violations, including six “willful” and 10 “serious” violations tied to asbestos handling at a site slated to become a park; the township is contesting the citations.
- The violations followed an October 27 inspection by the New Jersey Department of Health and come as remediation costs at the site have already exceeded $200,000.
- Toms River Township officials, including several council members, have repeatedly denied asbestos exists at the property, despite an Asbestos Abatement Work Plan from contractor Pennoni Associates finding friable and non-friable asbestos-containing material “scattered throughout the site” — a report that prompted the state to halt work at the site in October.
- The township has contested the OSHA citations
Court Finds Pump Maker Owed No Safety Duty in Deadly Fire
- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled on July 20 that equipment manufacturer Carlisle Fluid Technologies owed no legal duty of care to workers it had trained in the use of pumps it manufactures. The decision affirms a summary judgment by a lower court in a lawsuit brought by an employee who was severely burned and the families of two employees who were killed in a fatal paint-mixing room fire at the U.S. Army’s Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania.
- The court found that Carlisle had agreed only to sell, install, and train workers on the operational use of pumps used to transfer paint and flammable thinner, and its trainer spent between half an hour and two hours covering how to start the pumps and adjust pressures — with no evidence he addressed fire safety or the need for fire-resistant, anti-static clothing.
- Two months later, workers wearing ordinary street clothes rather than anti-static gear opened a thinner drum, releasing vapors that ignited via static discharge and caused the deadly fire; survivors and the victims’ estates sued nearly two dozen defendants, but only negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and wrongful death claims against Carlisle remained by the time the case reached the Third Circuit.
- The court held that under Pennsylvania law, a company’s duty of care extends only as far as the service it agreed to perform, and since Carlisle never agreed to provide comprehensive safety training, it had no broader duty despite plaintiffs’ argument that it held “superior knowledge” of the hazards — with the court noting that responsibility for worker safety training rested with the Depot as employer, not the equipment vendor.