Court Opinion

ID: 9462999
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:55:53.775814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:53.588793
License: Public Domain

CAMPBELL, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I think the court goes too far when it terms the rule “patently reasonable” and indicates that the entire Act will be reduced to an “exhortation” if the petitioner’s actions to date are accepted as adequate. In Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc. v. OSHRC, supra, at 546 n. 7, the court referred to statistics showing that head injuries comprised only a small fraction (perhaps 1%) of total longshoring injuries, and to a deteriorating rate of compliance as “many workers tried the hats, found them uncomfortable or cumbersome, and discontinued their use.” Certainly there are some longshoring evolutions where helmets are superfluous, and I can see the enforced wearing of a helmet on such occasions as a matter of justifiable irritation. Hence while I cannot say that a rule requiring helmets on all occasions is so arbitrary as to be beyond the Secretary’s power, I doubt that its reasonableness is as “patent” as the court says.
More to the point, I see clear grounds for distinguishing between the enforcement efforts that it is reasonable to demand of an employer where only the non-complying employee is endangered, and those reasonable to demand with respect to safety rules whose breach by one employee creates a danger to others. In the latter instance, I agree that OSHRC would not be acting responsibly if it did not make employers take all feasible measures, up to and including discharge, to ensure employee compliance. Here, however, where we deal with a default endangering only a non-complying employee himself, it seems to me that a less forceful approach would not undermine the purpose of the Act, and would be more compatible with traditional employer-employee relationships. It seems extreme in this context to force employers to stir up discontent and unrest with their own employees by having to enforce, across the board, such an unpopular rule. (Not too long ago this court paid much attention, even invoking the Constitution, to the hair preferences of students, a matter I think is of less importance than the self-respect and working relationships of grown men.) It is, in any event, much more burdensome for an employer to enforce this rule than to enforce a safety practice whose omission threatens other employees, where it would be obvious to the employees that their employer was acting in the best interest of all.
*548I have to concede, however, for reasons amply stated by Judge Gibbons in Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores and by my brothers,-that the legal authority of the Commission to take the approach chosen is not much in doubt, however doubtful I may think its judgment. Accordingly I reluctantly concur.