Hearing set on Indiana tunnel explosion case

A hearing has been set to potentially move the lawsuit involving a 31-year-old man who was injured during an April explosion while working on the Deep Rock Tunnel project near Fort Wayne, Indiana, when a boring machine exploded and piping and/or piping fragments struck him while he was more than 200 feet underground. IOSHA fined the company $7,000 and subsequently reached an informal settlement with it. WANE (Fort Wayne, Ind.)

Chicken plant employees return after weekend plant fire

Employees of the Perdue Farms poultry plant in Monterey, Tennessee, were back on the job Monday after a fire broke out there two days prior. WATTPoultry [may require registration]

Eleventh Circuit hold contractor responsible for sub’s safety practice

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals last week rejected an argument by a general contractor that it did not control the safety practices of subcontractors used on a residential construction project. The general contractor had argued it was not a controlling employer liable for the subcontractor’s activities because those subs were independently incorporated businesses and it never attempted to oversee or control their safety practices, according to attorneys at Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP. JD Supra

Federal appeals court deals blow to Fed-OSHA’s ability to cite repeat violations

Melanie L. Paul, of counsel in the Atlanta office of Jackson Lewis P.C., discusses how a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affects employers across all industries on the issue of repeat citations, when companies change ownership and the new ownership makes significant safety improvements. National Law Review

Professor discusses Fed-OSHA’s role in combating the pandemic

More information sharing and enforcement by Fed-OSHA and state agencies could better protect workers from COVID-19, contends Prof. John Mendeloff of the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Regulatory Review

UTEP receives Harwood grant for seventh straight year

The University of Texas at El Paso has received a Harwood training grant from Fed-OSHA to train hard-to-reach Hispanic employees in El Paso and neighboring areas for the seventh consecutive year. This year, $160,000 was awarded to the grant’s principal investigator, Adeeba Raheem, Ph.D., assistant professor of civil engineering, and co-PI Austin Marshall, J.D., clinical professor of civil engineering at UTEP, to train residential construction workers for safety hazards such as falls. El Paso Herald-Post