Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/613/1227/198202/
Timestamp: 2019-12-13 12:35:04
Document Index: 443371113

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 651', '§ 651', '§ 651', '§ 654', '§ 655', '§ 655', '§ 657']

7 O.s.h. Cas.(bna) 2089, 1980 O.s.h.d. (cch) P 24,154dravo Corporation, Petitioner, v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission and Raymarshall, Secretary of Labor, Respondents, 613 F.2d 1227 (3d Cir. 1980) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Third Circuit › 1980 › 7 O.s.h. Cas.(bna) 2089, 1980 O.s.h.d. (cch) P 24,154dravo Corporation, Petitioner, v. Occupational...
7 O.s.h. Cas.(bna) 2089, 1980 O.s.h.d. (cch) P 24,154dravo Corporation, Petitioner, v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission and Raymarshall, Secretary of Labor, Respondents, 613 F.2d 1227 (3d Cir. 1980)
US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit - 613 F.2d 1227 (3d Cir. 1980) Nov. 13, 1979. Decided Jan. 14, 1980
The central purpose of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 29 U.S.C. § 651 Et seq., is "to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions . . . ." 29 U.S.C. § 651(b). The Act authorizes the Secretary of Labor "to set mandatory occupational safety and health standards applicable to businesses affecting interstate commerce," and created the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission "for carrying out adjudicatory functions (of the Act)." 29 U.S.C. § 651(b) (3). Each statutory employer is placed under a duty to comply with the promulgated standards. 29 U.S.C. § 654(a) (2). Normally, the Secretary's standard-setting authority is to be exercised as the product of notice and comment rule-making. 29 U.S.C. § 655(b). Within the first two years after the effective date of the Act, however, because of concern that the Act be implemented as soon as possible, Congress authorized the Secretary to "promulgate as an occupational safety or health standard . . . any established Federal standard," without regard to the rule-making provisions. 29 U.S.C. § 655(a).
Thus, the OSHA shipbuilding regulations had their genesis in the LHWCA. The courts have recognized these safety regulations as part of the federal schema both to provide compensation under LHWCA to injured harbor workers in the event of an industrial accident and to prevent accidents involving harbor workers in the course of their maritime activities. Arthur v. Flota Mercante Gran Centro Americana S. A., 487 F.2d 561, 564 (5th Cir. 1973); Grigsby v. Coastal Marine Service of Texas, Inc., 412 F.2d 1011, 1036 (5th Cir. 1969), Cert. dismissed, 396 U.S. 1033, 90 S. Ct. 612, 24 L. Ed. 2d 531 (1970). Indeed, before the maritime standards were adopted by OSHA, a violation of the safety regulations constituted negligence per se in actions by injured longshoremen against shipowners. Arthur v. Flota Mercante Gran Centro Americana S. A., 487 F.2d at 564; Marshall v. Isthmian Lines, Inc., 334 F.2d 131, 134 (5th Cir. 1964).2
In determining the areas where Dravo may be held to maritime safety standards, it becomes necessary to consider the contentions of the parties. The Secretary would like to make the coverage of its maritime regulations as broad as possible, broader than the scope of compensation coverage under LHWCA.7 Dravo would prefer the applicability of OSHA shipbuilding regulations to be narrower than that of coverage of shipbuilders under LHWCA. This is necessarily Dravo's position because in Dravo Corp. v. Maxin, 545 F.2d 374, 381 (3d Cir. 1976), Cert. denied, 433 U.S. 908, 97 S. Ct. 2973, 53 L. Ed. 2d 1092 (1977), this court held that a welder in Dravo's Neville Island structural fabrication shop was a shipbuilder meeting both the status and situs tests for coverage under LHWCA.8 Here we face an appeal from an ALJ's determination of the applicability of shipbuilding safety standards with respect to OSHRC citations in the same shop which we held to be a situs covered by LHWCA in Maxin.
Dravo's position that OSHA coverage should be narrower than LHWCA coverage presents a more difficult issue. As we have noted, the purpose of these OSHA standards is to prevent injury to those harbor workers who, if injured, would be eligible for compensation under LHWCA. Longshoremen, for instance, are covered under LHWCA if they spend "at least some of their time in indisputably longshoring operations," in activities that are an integral part of the process of maritime industry. Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U.S. at 273, 97 S. Ct. 2348, 2362, 53 L. Ed. 2d 320; P.C. Pfeiffer Co. v. Ford, --- U.S. ----, ---- N.18, 100 S. Ct. 328, 337 n.18, 62 L. Ed. 2d 225 (1979).9 But, as the Supreme Court noted, LHWCA focuses on workers "solely in terms of what they are doing and never in terms of where they are working." Id. at ----, 100 S. Ct. at 336. Thus, although the "majority of the work" test used here by the ALJ arguably finds some support in our Maxin decision, because of the distinction between compensation and enforcement of a penal sanction, we believe that a LHWCA compensation case cannot be controlling in an OSHRC case.10
Dravo would have us adopt the reasoning of another ALJ in a proceeding at OSHRC Docket No. 14818. Dravo Corp., (1976-77) OSH Dec. (CCH) P 20,787 (1976). There, the ALJ rejected applicability of the shipbuilding standards to Dravo's pipe shop although ninety percent of the work done there was marine work. But the ALJ relied on I.T.O. Corp. v. Benefits Review Board, 529 F.2d 1080 (4th Cir. 1975), Vacated, 433 U.S. 904, 97 S. Ct. 2967, 53 L. Ed. 2d 1088 (1977). Because the only case cited in that OSHRC decision was vacated and remanded for reconsideration in light of Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U.S. 249, 97 S. Ct. 2348, 53 L. Ed. 2d 320, and because the decision erroneously relied on the "last point of rest" doctrine rejected by this court in Sea-Land Service, Inc. v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, 540 F.2d 629 (3d Cir. 1976), and by the Supreme Court in Northeast Marine Terminal Co., we reject Dravo's suggestion that we rely on the reasoning of that opinion in order to determine what areas are governed by OSHA's shipbuilding standards.
In addition to challenging the applicability of certain OSHA standards, Dravo argues that the inspections that led to the citations were the product of harassment. Dravo complains that the OSHA area director had ordered twenty-three previous inspections of its facility while its competitors were inspected one, two, or three times and that therefore the Secretary's inspection of the facility constituted an abuse of his discretion under 29 U.S.C. § 657(f) (1). Upon review of the record we find no error in the commission's determination that the Secretary did not abuse his discretion. The ALJ noted:
The status and situs tests were subsequently approved by the Supreme Court in Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U.S. 249, 97 S. Ct. 2348, 53 L. Ed. 2d 320 (1977)