Court Opinion

ID: 9464413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:32:15.952365+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:36.364052
License: Public Domain

PELL, Circuit Judge
dissenting.
Wisconsin Electric Power Company has challenged here the order of the Review Commission on two principal grounds, one of which properly could be termed substantive and the other procedural. Because I disagree with the resolution by the majority of both issues, I respectfully dissent.
As to the substantive issue, the dissenting opinion of Commissioner Moran sets forth what appears to me to be the correct resolution and I adopt his opinion as my own for the purpose of this dissent. Because his opinion is not published in a generally reported form, I herewith set it forth:
MORAN, Commissioner, Dissenting:
My review of the evidence convinces me that respondent complied with 29 C.F.R. § 1926.952(c)(2), the applicable standard, and that complainant erred in citing respondent for a violation of a standard which did not apply, 29 C.F.R. § 1926.955(a)(6)(ii). An exposition of the applicable parts of the standards as they appear to an employer trying to determine what he must do to comply with the Act will amply demonstrate the validity of this position.
The equipment used by respondent at the worksite is defined by complainant in 29 C.F.R. § 1926.960(q) as an electric line truck. It was stipulated by the parties that respondent was operating such a truck adjacent to energized lines.
*739From 29 C.F.R. § 1926.952(c)(l)(ii), we then learn that electric line trucks are also referred to as derrick trucks. From the standard that immediately follows, 29 C.F.R. § 1926.952(c)(2) which respondent contends is applicable, we learn that four alternative safety options are sanctioned when derrick trucks, cranes, or other lifting equipment is operated adjacent to energized lines. The pertinent portions of section 1926.952(c) are as follows:
“(c) Derrick trucks, cranes and other lifting equipment.
(1) All derrick trucks, cranes and other lifting equipment shall comply with Subpart[s] N and 0 of this part except:
* * * * * *
(ii) Derrick trucks (electric line trucks, shall not be required to comply with § 1926.950(a)(7)(vi) . . .
(2) With the exception of the equipment certified for work on the proper voltage, mechanical equipment shall not be operated closer to any energized line or equipment than the clearances set forth in § 1926.950(c) unless:
(i) An insulated barrier is installed between the energized part and the mechanical equipment, or
(ii) The mechanical equipment is grounded, or
(iii) The mechanical equipment is insulated, or
(iv) The mechanical equipment is considered as energized.” (Emphasis added.)
Any doubt that the four safety options enumerated above are also sanctioned when working adjacent to overhead lines is eliminated by section 1926.955(a)(5)(ii), pertaining to “Overhead lines.” It provides:
“Equipment and machinery operated adjacent to energized lines or equipment shall comply with § 1926.-952(c)(2).”
Section 1926.955(a)(6)(ii), the standard the Commission has found respondent in violation of, immediately follows the above direction to look to 29 C.F.R. § 1926.952(c)(2) to find out what must be done when machinery is being operated adjacent to overhead lines.
Complainant conceded that respondent complied with § 1926.952(c)(2). It was stipulated that respondent took all reasonable efforts to see to it that its employees complied with this standard. In a safety directive which respondent had issued to its employees about the requirements of § 1926.952(c)(2), respondent had instructed its employees that they could bond the truck to an effective ground, barricade it, insulate the line, or use an insulated boom or derrick. Respondent’s crew had chosen to proceed under (i) above in that they installed an insulated barrier (i.e., line hose) between the energized part (the line) and the mechanical equipment (the electric line truck) and (iii) in that the boom was equipped with a fiber glass extension. These were choices which complainant himself offered to them under 29 C.F.R. § 1926.952(c)(2).
Although respondent’s employees sought to comply both with this standard and respondent’s directives, they did so negligently and permitted the metal portion of the mechanical equipment on the truck to come into contact with an uninsulated portion of the energized line, thereby energizing the truck and trailer. Respondent however cannot be charged with this negligence because the record shows, and complainant stipulated, that respondent took all reasonable measures to ensure that its employees were aware of this standard. This is all the Act requires. See Horne Plumbing and Heating Company v. OSAHRC, 528 F.2d 564 (5th Cir. 1976); Cape and Vineyard Division of New Bedford Gas and Edison Light Company v. OSAHRC, 512 F.2d 1148 (1st Cir. 1975); Secretary v. Standard Glass Company, Inc., 1 OSAHRC 594 (1972).
The majority found respondent in violation because it did not ground or barricade when these are but two of the four options that were offered to respondent *740in 29 C.F.R. § 1926.952(c)(2). This has been done despite the fact that these four options were offered to respondent by virtue of the type of equipment it was using, an electric line truck, and by virtue of the type of work it was doing with this truck: work on overhead lines.
Thus, by finding respondent in violation of 29 C.F.R. § 1926.955(a)(6)(ii) which pertains to lifting equipment, a term that is not defined in the regulations, and which could mean A-frames, cranes, etc., my colleagues have, contrary to their assertion in footnote 13, found respondent in violation of a general standard when a specific standard is applicable. This is a departure from long-standing Commission precedent. Secretary v. Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, 4 OS-AHRC 1020, 1021 (1973). It is bad enough that an employer must plod through this confusing morass of regulations to ascertain what he must do to comply with the Act. See Diamond Roofing Co. v. OSAHRC, 528 F.2d 645, 649 n. 9 (5th Cir. 1976). But it is totally unjust when an employer who has done so and found the applicable regulation is then told that another regulation is controlling.
[Footnote and final paragraph, not here applicable, omitted.]
Presumably utility companies can in the future comply with the requirements as now enunciated by the Commission and as approved by this court even if such companies may not understand how the requirements were arrived at by reading the OSHA standards. Because of that fact the present ease might appear not to be of major significance, a status which I think it does have because of its constitutional due process violation aspect. A reading of the various briefs and decisions concerned with the effort to find clarity in the standards here under review aptly illustrates the necessity that in this area of governmental regulation of business, those subject to the regulations should be able to comprehend and implement standards. Here it was almost an impossibility to do so. The administrative law judge used one approach. Two Commissioners found one subsection of the standards applicable and the third Commissioner, disagreeing, found another subsection applicable with which the petitioner had fully complied. Commissioner Moran properly, in my opinion, characterized the standards as a “confusing mass of regulations.” Nevertheless, the majority opinion in part finds support for its position in the congruent administrative determinations of the applicability of the standards. I have difficulty in ascertaining real congruity in view of the above diverse constructions at the administrative level. With all due respect to the majority opinion, the mere tracking of the effort to wend its way through the paludal jungle of definitions tagged with lengthy alphabetical and numerical symbols should be sufficient demonstration in itself that the standards were so impossibly vague, indefinite, and confusingly juxtaposed as to deprive the petitioner of its constitutional due process rights.
No matter how worthwhile the purpose of regulations may be, and the propriety here is not being challenged, they should give fair notice of what conduct is proscribed or prescribed for employers. That clarity scarcely appears to exist when at both the administrative and judicial level conflicting interpretations can be said reasonably to exist. Neither the safety of employees nor the national industrial strength can be preserved by restrictive regulations which are not reasonably comprehensible.
The command of the United States Constitution is that due process requires a statute penalizing conduct to give fair notice of what conduct is required or prohibited, or it is unenforceable for indefiniteness. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 77, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976).
A statute or regulation which forbids or compels the doing of an act in terms so vague that persons of common intelligence must guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the constitutional requirements of due process and cannot stand. United States v. Tandaric, 152 F.2d
*7413 (7th Cir. 1945); Cicero v. Olgiati, 410 F.Supp. 1080, 1093 (S.D.N.Y. 1976).
As the court in Diamond Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, 528 F.2d 645, 649 (5th Cir. 1976), noted, an employer, like any other private citizen, is entitled to fair notice in dealing with his government:
Like other statutes and regulations which allow monetary penalties against those who violate them, an occupational safety and health standard must give an employer fair warning of the conduct it prohibits or requires, and it must provide a reasonably clear standard of culpability to circumscribe the discretion of the enforcing authority and its agents.
Therefore, the ultimate question which must be asked in determining whether a statute or regulation is unconstitutional for vagueness is whether it fails to give fair notice to a person of ordinary intelligence that it proscribes given conduct. Bence v. Breier, 501 F.2d 1185 (7th Cir. 1974), cert, denied, 419 U.S. 1121, 95 S.Ct. 804, 42 L.Ed.2d 821 (1975). In Cape and Vineyard Division of New Bedford Gas and Edison Light Company v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, 512 F.2d 1148 (1st Cir. 1975), an employer was cited for failing to require employees to use “necessary protective equipment,” following the death, by electrocution, of one of its employees. The court found the OSHA standard, standing alone, was too vague to be constitutionally enforced. In so doing the court wrote, at 1152:
A regulation without ascertainable standards . . . does not provide constitutionally adequate warning to an employer unless read to penalize only conduct unacceptable in light of the common understanding and experience of those working in the industry. Ryder Truck Lines, Inc. v. Brennan, 497 F.2d 230, 233 (5th Cir. 1974).
Both the history of the disagreements at all levels of this litigation and the efforts to reconcile conflicting and ambiguous language demonstrate, in my opinion, beyond peradventure that the regulations here under question do not pass constitutional muster. When a regulation is so internally inconsistent that the majority opinion upholds it despite recognizing that one part focuses on the manner of operation and another section focuses on conduct of the work, two phrases in essence relating to how the job is to be done, it appears to me it is time for the court to send the administrative agency back to the drafting room so that affected employers will not have to choose at their peril which part is to control their safety efforts.
Finally I regret noting that the majority opinion adverts to the fact that the danger described is illustrated by what happened in this case. Hindsight should not be a criterion in the resolution of OSHA cases or in determining that an employer has violated an incomprehensible standard of conduct. It is sufficient to note that the administrative law judge factually determined that the accident in question occurred because of a wilful and wanton violation of the standard by the employer’s supervisor without fault on the part of the employer.