Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/430-u-s-442-606840290
Timestamp: 2020-01-24 23:43:45
Document Index: 583625384

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 651', '§ 659', '§ 651', '§ 666', '§ 659', '§ 2200']

430 U.S. 442 (1977), 75-746, Atlas Roofing Co., Inc. v. Occupational Safety and Health Commission - Federal Cases - Case Law - VLEX 606840290
430 U.S. 442 (1977), 75-746, Atlas Roofing Co., Inc. v. Occupational Safety and Health Commission
Docket Nº: No. 75-746
Citation: 430 U.S. 442, 97 S.Ct. 1261, 51 L.Ed.2d 464
Party Name: Atlas Roofing Co., Inc. v. Occupational Safety and Health Commission
430 U.S. 442 (1977)
97 S.Ct. 1261, 51 L.Ed.2d 464
Atlas Roofing Co., Inc.
Held: The Seventh Amendment does not prevent Congress from assigning to an administrative agency the task of adjudicating violations of OSHA. When Congress creates new statutory "public rights," it may assign their adjudication to an administrative agency with which a jury trial would be incompatible, without violating the Seventh Amendment's injunction that jury trial is to be "preserved" in "suits at common law." That Amendment was never intended to establish the jury as the exclusive mechanism for factfinding in civil cases, but took the existing legal order as it found it, and hence there is little or no basis for now interpreting it as providing an impenetrable barrier to administrative factfinding under otherwise valid federal regulatory statutes. The Amendment did not render Congress powerless -- when it concluded that remedies available in courts of law were inadequate to cope with a problem within its power to regulate -- so to create such new public rights and remedies by statute and commit their enforcement, if it chose, to a tribunal other than a court of law (such as an administrative agency) in which facts are not found by juries. Pp. 449-461.
After extensive investigation, Congress concluded, in 1970, that work-related deaths and injuries had become a "drastic" national problem.1 Finding the existing state statutory remedies
as well as state common law actions for negligence and wrongful death to be inadequate to protect the employee population from death and injury due to unsafe working conditions, Congress enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA or Act), 84 Stat. 1590, 29 U.S.C. § 651 et seq. The Act created a new statutory duty to avoid maintaining unsafe or unhealthy working conditions, and empowers the Secretary of Labor to promulgate health and safety standards.2 Two new remedies were provided -- permitting the Federal Government, proceeding before an administrative agency, (1) to obtain abatement orders requiring employers to correct unsafe working conditions and (2) to impose civil penalties on any employer maintaining any unsafe working condition. Each remedy exists whether or not an employee is actually injured or killed as a result of the condition, and existing state statutory and common law remedies for actual injury and death remain unaffected.
If the employer wishes to contest the penalty or the abatement order, he may do so by notifying the Secretary of Labor within 15 days, in which event the abatement order is automatically stayed. §§ 659(a), (b), 666(d). An evidentiary hearing is then held before an administrative law judge of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. The Commission consists of three members, appointed for six-year terms, each of whom is qualified "by reason of training, education or experience" to adjudicate contested citations and assess penalties. §§ 651(3), 659(c), 661, 666(i). At this hearing, the burden is on the Secretary to establish the elements of the alleged violation and the propriety of his proposed abatement order and proposed penalty, and the judge is empowered to affirm, modify, or vacate any or all of these items, giving due consideration in his penalty assessment to "the size of the business of the employer . . the gravity of the violation, the good faith of the employer, and the history of previous violations." § 666(i). The judge's decision becomes the Commission's final and appealable order unless, within 30 days, a Commissioner directs that it be reviewed by the full Commission.3 §§ 659(c), 661(i); see 29 CFR §§ 2200.90, 2200.91 (1976).
If review is granted, the Commission's subsequent order directing abatement and [97 S.Ct. 1265] the payment of any assessed penalty
[t]he findings of the Commission with respect to questions of fact, if supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole, shall be conclusive.
Petitioners timely contested these citations, and were afforded...