Workers Comp

Safety violations justified in crane electrocution

Louise Esola

March 30, 2020 Reprints

Regulation Workers Comp Coverage Workplace Safety More + Less -

A Houston crane company whose worker was electrocuted while dismantling a construction crane too close to a power line was appropriately cited for safety violations, according to a U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission decision released Saturday.

Following the 2016 incident in which a TNT Crane & Rigging Inc. employee was seriously burned, inspectors with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration alleged two serious violations: exposing employees to the hazard of electrical shock by failing to prevent encroachment or contact with the power lines while disassembling the crane and for placing the crane closer than “the minimum approach distance” to a power line during that process, according to documents in Secretary of Labor v. TNT Crane & Rigging Inc., filed in Washington, D.C.

TNT Crane and Rigging argued that it was not disassembling the crane at the time, among other arguments. An administrative law judge agreed, dismissing the citations on the grounds that the cited provisions “did not apply to the work being done by TNT at the time of the accident” because OSHA’s definition of assembly and disassembly are ambiguous and that inspectors failed to adequately interpret the standards, records state.

The full commission disagreed, stating that the Secretary of Labor’s interpretation was “within scope” and “we find the regulatory history supports the Secretary’s interpretation of disassembly as a process that is not limited to physical dismantling,” according to the ruling.

Under that interpretation, the task at hand when the accident occurred “was part of TNT’s disassembly process because it was done for the dismantling” of part of the crane, “a task which necessarily required removal of the pins connecting the jib to the boom,” the ruling states.