A 10-foot fall by a construction worker at a Rancho Cordova residential project in 2016 turned into an almost eight-year legal battle between his employer and Cal/OSHA. The case, L&S Framing, has reached the California Court of Appeal, where the employer’s attorney, Manuel Melgoza, accuses the Appeals Board and Division of Occupational Safety and Health …
A review of recent employer settlements with the Cal/OSHA Appeals Board included one case that particularly stood out: Lamps Plus in Redlands appeared to face failure-to-abate (FTA) penalties of almost $353,000 in a foot-protection case. But the settlement order showed the violation of General Industry Safety Orders §3385(a) was “reclassified to repeat serious & reduced …
The Cal/OSHA Standards Board will hold another advisory committee meeting about making broad changes to regulations regarding so-called “walking/working surfaces.” The committee meets on February 22nd in Sacramento. This meeting will be the third convened by the board, following meetings in 2020 and 2022. Cal/OSHA is obligated to bring its regulations in line with the …
Ricky Miller, Jr., was an employee of Tri-Valley Amusement, Inc., owned by Charlie Gelatini. The Moose lodge hired Tri-Valley to move an ATM, and Miller and Gelantini were on hand for the project. Miller fell from a lodge-owned rolling scaffold while examining the ceiling to determine where he could run the ATM’s data cables. Miller …
Robert Peterson, the first chief counsel of the Cal/OSHA Appeals Board, who subsequently spent decades defending employers in citation cases, has died. He was 81. Peterson was a seminal figure in the development of Cal/OSHA’s legal underpinnings. “If you look back through the case law, it’s just peppered with Bob Peterson’s name,” says David Donnell, …
The first test case for applying the principle of “equitable tolling” to Cal/OSHA citation cases saw a trial court reject an employer’s arguments, upholding a serious machine-guarding violation. But attorneys representing employers say the principle could prove a lifeline to cases – both to employers and to Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health. That …