The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is one of the most effective and vital federal agencies, but even OSHA must respect the limits on their right to come on a company’s property. Thanks to a Georgia poultry operator, employers here and across the Southeast recently won a significant victory that confirms the limits to the federal government’s ability to expand workplace accident investigations.
The decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals immediately aids employers with operations in Georgia, Florida and Alabama, but could ultimately benefit companies across the country.
The case began in February 2016 when an employee of Gainesville-based Mar-Jac Poultry was injured while trying to repair an electrical panel. Because the employee was hospitalized, Mar-Jac reported the injury to OSHA. The agency sent an inspection team to the facility within a few days and found three potential violations relating to the accident.
But the case went astray – and ultimately landed in the federal appeals court – when following a review of Mar-Jac’s OSHA injury logs for three years the agency concluded the injuries reported on those logs suggested possible violations of federal standards related to ergonomic hazards, biological hazards, struck-by hazards, and more.
Citing these additional factors as a justification, OSHA requested to inspect the entire facility for hazards and not just the area of the accident. Mar-Jac refused to permit an expanded inspection, and OSHA went to court to resolve the dispute.
A federal magistrate judge determined that probable cause did not exist to expand the scope of the inspection based upon the injuries reported in the OSHA logs, and that special emphasis industry-specific inspection programs did not alone justify expanding the inspection.
A federal district judge in Georgia upheld the magistrate judge’s recommendation and OSHA appealed the case to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded no probable cause existed to expand the scope.
For Georgia companies, there are three key aspects of the decision. First, the Court restated that OSHA cannot expand an accident-based inspection unless there is probable cause. Second, the existence of a hazard does not necessarily imply the existence of a violation.
Third, OSHA cannot expand an inspection simply because of injuries recorded in an OSHA log. Rather, the agency must provide sufficient evidence that the recorded injuries demonstrate not only that hazards exist at the workplace, but also that violations are likely to be found.
These cases are fact-specific. In the Mar-Jac case, the court found the logs did not support such a finding. For example, at this specific worksite, the court found evidence of 25 recorded injuries related to possible ergonomics hazards over the course of three years. In a facility of 1,112 employees, however, this did not create reasonable suspicion that ergonomics violations were likely to exist.
The ruling is a needed public statement for companies trying to manage OSHA inspections, especially because many employers were irritated by casual expansion of inspections, which while efficient, might not be Constitutional. Employers often went along to avoid alienating inspectors.
Now, thanks to a Georgia company, Georgia employers will be more able to sometimes limit these expanded investigations.
Howard Mavity is a partner in the Atlanta office of national labor and employment law firm Fisher Phillips, where he founded and co-chairs the firm’s Workplace Safety and Catastrophe Management Practice Group.
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