Court Opinion

ID: 9461529
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:16:20.436357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:06.170765
License: Public Domain

BREITENSTEIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent. The regulation, 29 CFR 1910.22(c), says that “covers and/or guardrails shall be provided to protect personnel from the hazards of open pits, tanks, vats, ditches, etc.” We are concerned with a maintenance pit for servicing a fleet of tractors-trailers. Nothing in the regulation, or in the history behind the regulation, equates “maintenance pit” with “open pit.” Maintenance pits are included in the regulation, if at all, by the “etc.”, a symbol of doubtful significance. I suggest that if the regulation is to apply to maintenance pits, it should specifically mention them.
The Law Judge found:
“4. The Respondent in its specially constructed inbound inspection area operated four unguarded lubrication, inspection and safety pits, which presented low level of gravity type hazards and where no personal injuries attributed to the unguarded pits were reported during its two years of existence.
5. There was no showing by the evidence of a general condition, industry-wide, of lost time accidents directly related to this specific type of operation.”
The Law Judge concluded:
“4. The complainant has failed to sustain the burden of proof that failure to provide covers or guardrails around the four lubrication, inspection and safety pits in the inbound inspection area by the Respondent was a violation of standard 29 CFR 1910.-22(c) item 4 of the amended citation issued June 16, 1972.”
Review of the Law Judge’s decision was heard by a panel of three Commissioners, one of whom, the Chairman of the Commission, said in dissent:
“Considering the overall conditions existing in the respondent’s workplace, the area director who issued the citation concluded that the only feasible way for the respondent to comply with the standard was to use nylon cable. Since the standard does not require *871nylon cable and the use of the protective measures enumerated in the standard would have severely disrupted the respondent’s work, it is improper to affirm the violation.” Citations omitted.
To this I would add that expert evidence theorized that the use of nylon cable would create hazards not presently existing.
The dissenting Commission Chairman also said:
“What a standard assumes is irrelevant because the mere fact that the provisions of a standard have not been followed is not enough to establish a violation of the Act. There is no violation unless the evidence establishes that the respondent’s employees were actually exposed to an unsafe working condition by the failure to comply with the standard.” Citations omitted.
I agree with the Law Judge and with the dissenting Chairman of the Commission.