Mine Safety and Health Administration and OSHA get some resolution
- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit added clarity to the jurisdictional border between the Mine Safety and Health Administration and OSHA.
- The Secretary of Labor asked whether Jones Brothers, a Tennessee-based construction company, was operating a “borrow pit” under OSHA’s jurisdiction or a “mine” under MSHA’s jurisdiction.
- The Sixth Circuit relied on the interagency agreement between MSHA and OSHA and affirmed the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission’s ruling that Jones Brothers was operating a mine.
- The Sixth Circuit held that an extraction site failed to meet the interagency agreement’s requirements to qualify as a “borrow pit” that falls under OSHA’s jurisdiction.
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Seattle firm fined $2 million, among largest penalty in state
- Three confidential complaints from an employee of The Young Corp., a King County, Washington, business have resulted in 175 safety and health violations and a $2 million fine from the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries.
- The L&I found 31 willful serious, seven willful general, 94 serious, and more than 40 general violations over three locations.
- The total fine, $2,013,120, is among the largest in L&I history.
- Inspections in November and December identified 28 crane-safety hazards, the state said. The firm went three years without crane inspections, and some operators were unqualified, L&I alleges.
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Grieving family wants more consequences after death
- A father wants more penalties after his son, a single father, died after falling from a roof at work.
- The North Carolina Department of Labor cited a local business with a total of six alleged violations after an employee died on the job and issued a fine of $17,051.80.
- “The fines are a slap in the face,” the father said. “It’s less than $20,000 in fines. These people are not indispensable. These people have families.”
- Since Strathern’s death, Gilgor has been looking into the OSHA laws and standards.
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French tourist files lawsuit over barrier in Arizona
- A French tourist has filed a claim against the city of Sedona seeking $425,000 for injuries and damages in compensation after she injured her hand on the median barrier in Uptown, Arizona.
- The woman injured her hand when she attempted to hand her purse to her husband over a fenced-in barrier when she lost her balance and clutched at the cutout portion of the median, which she alleges cut through her tendons and almost severed her fingers.
- Mark Cannon, of Augspurger Komm Engineering, subsequently conducted an inspection of the fence. They concluded that the sharp edges and burrs in the metal panel were a safety hazard and that Saphores-Baudin’s injury was preventable because they should have been removed when the panel was installed.
- He said OSHA regulations require that sharp edges be removed if a hand might come in contact with them.
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