Proper safety policies and implemented training remain cornerstones to an effective safety program. When deficiencies crop up, OSHA and plaintiff's lawyers have a pipeline to serious citations or intentional tort civil claims. Witness four recent cases. 1) Contradictory safety policies - An employer violated OSHA's general machine guarding standards when it gave employees the option of wearing gloves while manually feeding wire mesh into a flattening machine, while also prohibiting the use of gloves near moving machinery in a different work rule. The First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the violation because this (Hobson's Choice) required the operators to choose which hazard to protect themselves against. The employer claimed a defense of isolated or unprevented employee misconduct. The problem? It was not an isolated situation but a practice because most of the employees kept their hands on the workpiece, near the in-running rollers.
展开▼
