Opinion ID: 357975
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: absence of precise standards re levels of accumulation

Text: 38 Related to petitioner's argument that the accumulation of titanium dust and fines existing in Unit 11 on October 24, 1974, have not been shown to have been likely to cause death or serious injury is its emphasis on the present lack of any recognized standards with regard to what levels of accumulation pose such a hazard. 39 There was testimony both from the Secretary's and petitioner's witnesses that under current technology it is impossible to produce titanium on a commercial scale without producing some dust and fines in the process. Similarly, a review of the National Fire Code, NFPA No. 481-1972, and testimony regarding its contents reveals that it contains no precise standard(s) that indicates what level of accumulation of titanium dust and fines would be dangerous in the sense of being likely to cause death or serious physical harm. Kraeger, petitioner's plant engineer and member of the industry committee responsible for the 1972 revision of the Code, testified that there is a need for research on this issue but that such testing should be conducted under the auspices of a disinterested group rather than the industry itself. He stated that petitioner had undertaken no such research on its own. 40 In applying the likely to cause element of the general duty clause, it is improper to apply mathematical tests relating to the probability of a serious mishap occurring. National Realty, supra, 489 F.2d at 1265 n. 33, given the Act's prophylactic purpose to prevent employee injuries, Allis-Chalmers Corp., supra. In construing a similar element of § 17(k), 29 U.S.C. § 666(j), defining a serious violation of OSHA, we have previously affirmed the Secretary's view that substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result refers not to the probability that an accident of such nature will occur but only to the probability that, an accident having occurred, death or serious injury Could result. California Stevedore, supra, 517 F.2d at 988. 41 In the instant case, this rule must be viewed in the context of the variable factor (i. e., the Level of accumulation) which necessarily inheres in the recognized hazard (i. e., the risk of fire from Any accumulation). The fact that no precise standard exists as to what level of accumulation is dangerous in the § 5(a)(1) sense, far from relieving petitioner of the burden of minimizing accumulations, arguably imposes an even greater duty on petitioner, faced with the obligation of taking feasible measures to assure the safety of its employees, to err, if at all, on the side of greater, not lesser, caution. To be sure, this obligation must be reconciled with the reasonable limitation placed on the employer's general duty, that is, the duty of the employer to eliminate only those hazards which are foreseeable and preventable. California Stevedore, supra, 517 F.2d at 988. In the context of the Secretary's burden of establishing a violation of § 5(a)(1), this means that the record must indicate that demonstrably feasible measures would have materially reduced the likelihood that such (injury) would have occurred. National Realty, supra, 489 F.2d at 1267. Put another way: (T)he Secretary must be constrained to specify the particular steps a cited employer should have taken to avoid citation, and to demonstrate the feasibility and likely utility of those measures. Id. at 1268. It is to this element (and its relation to the absence of precise standards regarding dangerous levels of accumulation) that we now turn. 42