Litigation

OSHA is again attacking South Carolina’s lawsuit targeting the requirement for OSH Act state plans to match the federal agency’s maximum penalty amounts, arguing ahead of a Nov. 16 hearing that the state’s arguments against that mandate are untethered from the “four corners” of its case and thus should be summarily rejected.

A federal appeals court has overturned a district judge’s ruling that invoked OSHA’s “primary jurisdiction” over workplace protections from COVID-19 to preempt Amazon warehouse workers’ suit accusing the retailer of violating New York pandemic safeguards, setting a narrow precedent for using that doctrine to limit suits over state policies.

A Texas construction firm is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to narrow OSHA’s reading of its safety standard for assembling or disassembling cranes and other large equipment, arguing in a new brief that the agency was wrong to cite it under that rule for an accident involving preparatory steps before the disassembly process.

South Carolina is defending its lawsuit seeking to block OSHA’s mandate that state plans match federal maximum penalties for OSH Act violations, saying that the agency has shown scant justification for the requirement in either statutory text or its own rules and offered “no response” to arguments that the law explicitly gives states “flexibility” on penalties.

A federal appeals court has overturned a 2020 Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) decision that took a narrow reading of OSHA’s safety standard for goods “stored in tiers,” holding that Walmart violated the rule in a 2017 accident even though the items in question were held in shelves rather than stacked directly atop one another.

OSHA is asking a federal district court to reject South Carolina’s suit that would block the agency’s years-old requirement for states to match its annual increases to maximum OSH Act penalties, saying that the Palmetto State’s claims are both legally flawed and premature because it has made no formal move to enforce the rule.

An Ohio construction company is preparing to ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to hold much of OSHA’s regulatory program unconstitutional under the non-delegation doctrine that limits Congress’ ability to give agencies rulemaking discretion, after a district court rejected its claims as lacking any “binding or persuasive authority."

The discount retail chain Dollar General is telling the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit it will oppose OSHA’s bid to have the court enforce an “informal settlement agreement” the two sides negotiated over a $145,000 citation for allegedly unsafe conditions at an Ohio store.

Federal judges considering a rare suit under the OSH Act provision allowing workers to sue OSHA for failing to take action over an “imminent danger” raised doubts at oral argument on whether they can still provide any relief to the plaintiffs more than two years into the case, among an array of other questions on the results both sides are seeking in the appeal.

The Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is launching a new study of the worker-safety impacts of raising line-speed caps at meat and poultry slaughterhouses, potentially reshaping long-pending suits by unions and others over prior speed waivers that a district judge scrapped for failing to consider safety issues.