Employment Law - Workplace Safety

Front 1

Types of OSHA claims (2)

Back 1

1) General Duty Clause
2) Specific Standards (5a2)

Front 2

General Duty Clause (def)

Back 2

- Catch all.
- This says that if your safety does not reach a certain level of safety then you are liable.
- There is a “line” that signifies when you should have known better and fixed the problem. These are harder to prove because they are not enumerated

Front 3

Specific Standards (5a2) (def)

Back 3

- These are specific standards that have been set forth and must be met by an employer.
- Standards must be “reasonably necessary and appropriate to provide safe or healthful employment” which “most adequately assures, to the extent feasible, on the basis of the best available evidence, that no employee will suffer material impairment of health or functional capacity.”

Front 4

OSHA and ICC

Back 4

- Must have for OSHA to apply
- The employer’s business does not have to be engaged in interstate commerce, it only has to affect it.
- Burden: Very deferential standard.
1. There is substantial evidence
2. On the record as a whole

Front 5

Specific Standards Reqs (3)

Back 5

1) Feasible
2) Safe
3) Significant risk of material impairment of health or functional capacity

Front 6

Specific Standards - Feasibility

Back 6

Standard must be reasonable,
- should be what is feasible for a business or industry, not what is technically feasible or possible.

Front 7

Specific Standards - Safe

Back 7

The act does not require that the standard makes the workplace “risk free” only that it is safe.

Front 8

Specific Standards - Significant risk

Back 8

OSHA must prove this.
o Does not have to show the exact mathematical probability
o Can err on the side of safety
o Can require a monitoring below whatever the level they set it at to gather evidence for revision
o Doesn’t have to be anything approaching a scientific certainty
o Can use conservative assumptions

Front 9

Downstream warnings

Back 9

When you create a product you have to provide info on the dangers of the product no matter how remote the downstream damages may be

Front 10

General Duty Clause Requirements

Back 10

1) Existence of a hazard
2) Recognition of a hazard
3) Serious physical harm:
4) Feasibility of abatement
5) Specific remedies

Front 11

General Duty Clause - Existence of a hazard (2)

Back 11

Must show:
1) Actual or potential physical harm
2) A sufficient causal connection between the harm and the workplace

Front 12

General Duty Clause - Serious physical harm

Back 12

this has to be enough harm to prevent an employee from doing their job. Harm “likely to cause death or serious physical harm.”

Front 13

General Duty Clause - Feasibility of abatement

Back 13

must show that feasible means exist to eliminate or materially reduce the hazard.

Front 14

General Duty Clause - Specific remedies

Back 14

OSHC has to come forth with specific items that employers should have done which are feasible and utile.