Opinion ID: 884240
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Did the District Court commit reversible error by excluding employment safety regulations including OSHA and ANSI from the trial of the case?

Text: The standard of review of a district court's discretionary ruling is whether the district court abused its discretion. Durbin v. Ross (1996), 276 Mont. 463, 477, 916 P.2d 758, 767; State v. Santos (1995), 273 Mont. 125, 137, 902 P.2d 510, 517. The abuse of discretion standard applies to trial administration issues, post-trial motions and similar rulings. Montana Rail Link v. Byard (1993), 260 Mont. 331, 337, 860 P.2d 121, 125. The Reeds submitted a motion in limine requesting that the Lynches be restricted from mentioning any construction site safety standards. The District Court granted the Reeds' motion in limine in several respects. The District Court ruled that Occupational Safety and Health Administration Regulations (OSHA), American National Standard Safety Requirements (ANSI), and Montana's Construction Site Health and Safety Act were inadmissible on the issue of the Reeds' negligence because the safety standards in question do not have the force of law. . . . The District Court had the opportunity to analyze this issue at various junctures since the Lynches persistently raised the issue throughout the trial. The Lynches' argument on appeal focuses on the District Court's exclusion of OSHA and ANSI regulations, and we will therefore discuss only those regulations. The Lynches argued to the District Court, and argue here, that the Reeds' failure to comply with OSHA regulations and ANSI standards is evidence of their negligence and, thus, admissible. The Reeds, on the other hand, contend that OSHA and ANSI are not applicable to an individual who is constructing his own private residence. The Lynches argue that in granting the Reeds' motion in limine regarding safety standards, the court incorrectly relied on Hackley v. Waldorf-Hoerner Paper Products Co. (1967), 149 Mont. 286, 294-95, 425 P.2d 712, 716, for the proposition that evidence of safety standards that do not have the force of law are inadmissible on the issue of negligence. In Hackley, this Court considered two rulings by the district court in which the district court had refused the use of evidence on safety standards for any purpose. The first issue considered by this Court was whether the district court had erred in refusing to permit any testimony on the minimum Safety Standards for the Construction Industry, section 41-1702, R.C.M.1947.... Hackley, 425 P.2d at 716. The Court began its analysis by examining the language of the statute at issue. The statute in Hackley, as the OSHA regulations here, spoke in terms of an employer's duty. The Court's decision that evidence of the statutory safety standard was properly excluded was based on its conclusion that the statute imposed no duty on the defendant because it was not an employer of the injured person. Hackley, 425 P.2d at 716. The second issue this Court analyzed involved the district court's refusal to admit industry safety standards. This Court affirmed the district court's exclusion of the standards on the basis that advisory material not having the force of law, is not admissible on the issue of negligence. Hackley, 425 P.2d at 716. The Lynches argue that Hackley is no longer good law in Montana and is not applicable to this case for two reasons: it was ruled on prior to the adoption of the standards and codes in question, and it was based on an annotation which has since been superseded. The Lynches point out that in Hackley, this Court, following the majority rule set forth in 75 A.L.R.2d 778, affirmed the district court's refusal to admit standards promulgated by the American Standards Association. However, that annotation has been superseded by 58 A.L.R.3d 148 which states that the modern trend toward greater admissibility of these codes and standards has apparently been great enough to make it unwise to attempt to identify any majority or minority rule. The Lynches argue that this Court recognized Hackley 's shortcomings in Runkle v. Burlington Northern (1980), 188 Mont. 286, 613 P.2d 982. The Runkle decision acknowledged that post- Hackley decisions seem to be moving toward acceptance in evidence of such advisory material with certain qualifications. Such treatises may be admitted upon the foundation that they (1) show what is feasible to the jury, or (2) show what the defendant knew or should have known about safety precautions. Runkle, 613 P.2d at 993. However, the Court in Runkle also established the following rule for admissibility of industry standards and codes: Unless the codes or standards are adopted by a governmental agency so as to have the force of law, they are not to be admitted as conclusively determining the standard of care imposed upon the defendant, nor as substantive evidence of negligence, unless coupled with a showing of general acceptance in the industry concerned. Runkle, 613 P.2d at 993 (citations omitted) (emphasis added). We interpret this rule as providing two separate tests for the admissibility of codes or standards: 1) a code or standard sought to be admitted for the purpose of conclusively determining the standard of care imposed upon the defendant must have been adopted by a governmental agency so as to have the force of law; 2) where a code or standard does not have the force of law, it may nevertheless be admitted as substantive evidence of negligence if it is coupled with a showing of general acceptance in the industry concerned. In interpreting the rule from Runkle in this manner we must necessarily overrule Hackley, insofar as it holds that evidence of codes or standards of safety issued by governmental bodies as advisory material but without the force of law, are never admissible on the issue of negligence. Under the rule in Runkle we must first determine whether OSHA or ANSI have the force of law as applied to the Reeds. The regulations interpreting OSHA provide in part that [a]ny employer employing one or more employees would be an `employer engaged in a business affecting commerce who has employees' and, therefore, he is covered by the Act as such. 29 CFR § 1975.4. The Lynches argue that the Reeds are covered by OSHA under this definition of employer because the Reeds employed a crane operator-laborer, cement and brick mason, and carpenters and because the construction of the Reeds' cabin falls under the broad category of businesses that are in a class of activity that as a whole affects commerce. The Lynches argue that OSHA was developed to protect any person rightfully on the job site, not just employees, and therefore Lynch was a person covered under the Act. Cases cited by the Lynches in support of their theory that OSHA protections encompass non-employees discuss the multi-employer doctrine, which has developed as a means of apportioning liability at multi-employer work sites where one employer has created a hazard and some employees, but not necessarily its own, are exposed to the hazard. See Arrington v. Arrington Bros. Const., Inc. (1989), 116 Idaho 887, 781 P.2d 224 (holding that an employer's OSHA duties may run not only to his own employees, but to any other employees or persons in general on a multi-employer worksite); Teal v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. (6th Cir.1984), 728 F.2d 799 (recognizing employers' and commercial general contractors' duties under OSHA to protect all employees on a multi-employer worksite); see also Anthony Crane Rental, Inc. v. Reich (D.C.Cir.1995), 70 F.3d 1298. We find these cases inapplicable to the instant case because the Reeds' log cabin construction project is not a multi-employer worksite. Furthermore, all of the cases cited by the Lynches require that, before employers are obligated to protect all persons rightfully on the worksite, it must first be established that the employer is deemed responsible for complying with OSHA regulations at all. Teal, 728 F.2d at 804. Accordingly, the first question to be answered is whether the Reeds are employers under the Act. OSHA defines employer as a person engaged in a business affecting commerce who has employees. 29 U.S.C. § 652(5). In the instant case, the uncontroverted facts are that Lynch was not an employee of the Reeds at the time of the accident and that the other workers on the site were independent contractors. It has been held that OSHA does not apply to an owner where the worker on the owner's property is an independent contractor and not an employee of the owner. Cochran v. International Harvester Co. (W.D.Ky.1975), 408 F.Supp. 598; see also Ellis v. Chase Communications, Inc. (6th Cir.1995), 63 F.3d 473, 478 (holding the multi-employer doctrine of Teal inapplicable to a non-employer defendant whose status was no different than a property owner hiring a contractor to perform work on its property). But see Williams v. KOPCO (D.Kan.1995), 162 F.R.D. 670 (relying on Teal in holding that independent contractors are in the class of persons OSHA regulations were designed to protect). Given that none of the persons assisting Reed in the construction of the cabin was Reed's employee, Reed is not an employer under OSHA. We therefore hold that OSHA was not applicable to the Reeds and thus did not have the force of law. Likewise, ANSI requirements do not apply. Section 1.1 of the standards provides: This standard is intended to provide protection to persons in all places where there is danger of persons or materials falling through floor or wall openings, or from stairways, platforms, or runways. This standard applies to temporary or emergency conditions as well as to permanent conditions. It does not apply to construction work covered by American National Standard Safety Requirements for construction A10 Series, or to private residences. Thus, by its own terms, the ANSI standards do not apply to the construction at the Reeds' private residence. Under the second test in Runkle, if standards do not have the force of law, they may still be admissible to show negligence if coupled with a showing that they are generally acceptable in the industry concerned. The Lynches argue that OSHA standards are generally acceptable in the construction industry and thus should have been admitted. We hold, however, that construction of an individual's private cabin undertaken by a non-commercial owner-builder is not part of the construction industry as a whole and therefore the District Court properly excluded evidence of ANSI and OSHA standards. The Lynches have failed to show that the District Court abused its discretion in precluding evidence of OSHA regulations and ANSI standards. Therefore, the District Court did not abuse its discretion in granting the Reeds' motion in limine nor in its other rulings excluding admission of these safety standards except as discussed in the next issue.