Opinion ID: 1535336
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The (i)(11) Standard

Text: With respect to the violation of (i)(11), as we have noted, the absence of the required guardrails on the front and side, as well as the midrails and the toe boards, is admitted by the employer. The defense to this citation is that the general duty imposed by Art. 89, § 32 (a) (1), that each employer shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are safe and healthful as well as free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees, fastens upon it the duty to create the safest possible work environment, even if this means violating a specific standard. The employer thus claims as an affirmative defense to the alleged violation of standard (i)(11) that the actual working conditions were safer than those contemplated by the standard. The employer buttresses its contention that the required guardrails would have increased the hazard by pointing to the testimony which it presented. The chief construction inspector of the general contractor, for example, a longtime veteran of bridge construction, gave this testimony: Q. Do you feel that [the front guardrail requirement] is a hazard? A. I feel it could be a hazard because you're going to have to get around it anyway and to do it you're either going to have to go under it or over it and, therefore, you're creating a hazard of your own. The employer's superintendent on this project, also experienced in bridge construction, testified as follows: Q. Could you explain to me why you believe the front rail is more hazardous when you are painting the bridge than when you don't have it? A. That front rail  the men would either have to climb over or go under. When they're cranking them scaffolds they bump elbows. It's more of a hazard than serves the purpose of safety. In response to this contention, appellee maintains that the employer should have sought a variance pursuant to § 34 of Art. 89, which requires an applicant for such relief to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that the employer will provide places of employment to his employees which are as safe and healthful as those which would prevail if he complied with the ... standard from which the variance is sought. The employer acknowledges that no such variance was sought respecting the guardrail requirement. It parries this thrust, however, with the contention that it was not required to do so if the substantial evidence shows that compliance with the standard would have created a greater hazard than that sought to be avoided. In effect, the argument is that in such circumstances an exception to the standard must be implied. The Federal Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission has had occasion to consider the question posed by these contentions in Secretary of Labor v. Industrial Steel Erectors, Inc., OSHRC Docket No. 703, 1973-74 CCH-OSHD, ¶ 17,136 (January 10, 1974). In addressing the conflicting obligations which may arise from the tension between the general duty clause and an individual standard  particularly where the latter may be more hazardous than the employment practice actually followed  the Commission observed: ... While concededly employers have an obligation to comply with applicable standards, in a given situation, we do not read section [654] so literally as to require a form of compliance that will diminish rather than enhance the safety of the employees.... Employees and employers alike should not be required to comply with a standard so sedulously as to follow a course of conduct that is shown by the weight of the evidence to be less safe than an existing work practice. This is not to say that the standards adopted by the Secretary are not substantive rules having the force and effect of law. But in our view an exception to the requirements ... must be implied to permit a condition of greater safety or health to prevail in the workplace than is possible under a standard that has general application. In considering the argument that Industrial Steel Erectors should have obtained a variance, the Commission noted that this is the appropriate procedure, particularly if the employer desires a declaratory judgment type of pre-enforcement relief. It could be argued that an employer, however, may also proceed at his own risk without a variance, chancing that he can prove his action to be justified in a subsequent enforcement proceeding. Accord, Secretary of Labor v. Cleveland Wrecking Co., OSHRC Docket No. 1359, 1973-74 CCH-OSHD, ¶ 18,231 (July 10, 1974); Secretary of Labor v. J.H. Baxter & Co., OSHRC Docket No. 2043, 1973-74 CCH-OSHD, ¶ 16,315 (July 18, 1973). We need not, however, reach this question. Here, the Commissioner, having noted the uncontroverted evidence that the guardrails (on three sides), the midrails, and the toe boards were not in place, rejected the argument that compliance with (i)(11) would have created a hazard. He was also of the view that this claim should have been presented by an application for a variance. Although there was testimony from which the Commissioner could have found that front guardrails would have created a hazard, he was not compelled to reach this conclusion. There was also testimony from which he could have determined that the painters merely found front guardrails an inconvenience rather than a hazard. Confronted with these alternative possibilities, it was not inappropriate for the Commissioner to reason that the employer should have sought relief before the fact, rather than risk that it could prove its course of conduct to be justified in some future enforcement proceeding. This reasoning is reinforced by the fact that the employer had been cited for the identical violation just weeks before  when a fatality also resulted  and had neither contested the charge nor taken any corrective action. That, under these conditions, the Commissioner took a jaundiced view of the increased hazard claim made by the employer is understandable. In any event, these circumstances coupled with the uncontroverted evidence respecting the guardrails readily furnished the substantial evidence necessary to support the findings of the Commissioner, and the circuit court properly affirmed them.