OSHA Citations and Inspection Penalties

OSHA has also altered the way it combines or bundles violations. By assessing violations as individual citations, OSHA can assess more penalties per inspection.  Previously, OSHA typically only issued a single citation for each standard that it alleges an employer violated regardless of how many employees are affected by the alleged violation.  The Secretary of Labor, however, recently revised thirty-four different OSHA standards to permit OSHA to cite employers with a separate violation for each affected employee.  In one recent case, an employer was cited 11 times for failure to provide 11 employees with respirators while removing asbestos from a building.  See e.g.  Clarification of Employer Duty to Provide Personal Protective Equipment and Train Each Employee, 73 Fed. Reg. 75,568, 75,583-89 (Dec. 12, 2008).  Although the new rules authorize employee-by-employee citations, the Secretary’s Field Operations Manual states that generally only a single citation will issue for each standard an employer violates.  OSHA states that employee by employee citations will only be applied when the employer’s behavior is willful and egregious. See OSHA Instruction CPL 2.80, Handling of Cases To Be Proposed for Violation-By-Violation Penalties (October 21,1990).

Trenton H. Cotney
Florida Bar Certified in Construction Law
Glenn Rasmussen Fogarty & Hooker, P.A.
100 S. Ashley Dr., Suite 1300
Tampa, FL 33602
(813) 229-3333
http://www.glennrasmussen.com