Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLAE, 5/28/18



In enforcement cases involving the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, where the employer is found to have provided inadequate training in a case where a worker is injured or killed on the job, the violation could be found to have been “willful,” elevating the severity of the violation, particularly if the lack of training involved an employee who is acting as a supervisor or foreman.

This, according to Safety Law Newsletter, which analyzed the decision of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Martin Mechanical Contractors v. Sec. of Labor (11th Cir., Mar. 27, 2018).

In the court case, a crew foreman who was not familiar with OSHA’s fall protection standards did not require fall protection for employees working on a flat roof. One worker subsequently fell through a skylight in the roof and died of his injuries. The employer, Martin Mechanical Contractors, argued that the violation wasn’t “willful” because the foreman was unaware, but the court found that the fact that the foreman was poorly trained, “if anything, only to underscore the inadequacy of [the employer’s] training program.

To hold that such inadequacy — and the resulting unfamiliarity —precludes classification of a violation as willful would perversely allow [the employer] to use its ineffective training as a defense against OSHA’s most serious charge,” the newsletter quoted court documents as saying.

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