The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission affirmed two serious citations previously vacated by an administrative law judge against a commercial laundry facility.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued 10 serious and four repeat citations against Angelica Textile Services Inc., which operates a commercial laundry facility in Ballston Spa, New York, following a June 2008 inspection. In 2012, a former administrative law judge issued a decision affirming two of the serious items and vacating the remaining 12 items and assessed a total penalty of $3,825 for the two affirmed items, according to commission documents published on Tuesday.

Two of the vacated citation items — alleging repeat violations concerning the adequacy of isolation and verification procedures for a permit required confined space and of lockout/tagout procedures — were appealed by the Department of Labor on OSHA’s behalf to the review commission, which affirmed both citation items, characterized them as serious and assessed a single grouped penalty of $7,000, according to commission documents.

The Secretary of Labor argued the facility’s lockout/tagout procedures were “deficient” because they do not clearly identify all of the specific steps to be followed by employees to control hazardous energy, including the operation and location of lockout controls and fail to guide the employees through the lockout process, and they lack specific procedures for verifying de-energization, but the company argued that the secretary failed to put forth any evidence that its procedures are not sufficient.

“We affirm the violation, but on narrower grounds than argued by the secretary,” the review commission said in finding that the company was not in compliance with the OSHA standard because there were deficiencies in the specificity of Angelica’s procedures for locking out specific equipment and verification of the lockout.

“The secretary maintains that Angelica’s procedures are not specific enough because they neither list ‘the location of the energy sources’ nor explain ‘the steps the employee is required to take’ to lock them out,” the review commission said. “We agree, but only with respect to certain aspects of the (lockout/tagout) procedures as they relate to the (combined batch washers) and dryers.”

The review commission also concluded that Angelica did not properly maintain its monitoring equipment for use in a confined space entry and affirmed that citation.

But the review commission reclassified the penalties as serious rather than repeat violations after finding the violations were not substantially similar. The secretary had argued that the confined space entry citation should be characterized as a repeat based on a 2005 settlement agreement related to a previous citation, but the review commission determined that although both address the requirements for a confined space entry program, they were not the same standard.

OSHA penalties for repeat violations can result in larger fines of up to $129,336, while fines for serious citations are capped at $12,934 per violation in 2018.

“The decision was a long time in coming, but we are pleased that the majority opinion recognizes that an employer should be encouraged to take corrective abatement action after receiving an initial citation and that if it does so that it can present a credible defense to a subsequent repeat citation on the grounds that the subsequent citation is not ‘substantially similar’ to the prior citation because of the corrective abatement action that it took,” Mark A. Lies, a partner with law firm Seyfarth Shaw L.L.P. in Chicago who represented the company, said in an emailed statement. “This ruling is consistent with the original intent behind citations when the act was created, that is, to change an employer’s conduct toward safety and to correct hazards in the workplace to protect the employees. Allowing repeat citations to be issued in a mechanical fashion without recognizing an employer’s subsequent compliance efforts as a defense to a repeat citation is contrary to Congressional intent in creating the repeat classification and to encouraging employers to take prompt good faith efforts to improve employee safety and health.”