OSHRC vacates electrocution citation
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The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, stating a lack of proof that an employer had “knowledge of a violative condition,” vacated a serious citation issued to an infrastructure construction company in 2014 after an employee was electrocuted while working in an aerial bucket relocating energized, overhead power lines.
Following the incident in Merritt Island, Florida, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued Coral Gables, Florida-based MasTec North America Inc., which was contracted to move three overhead electrical distribution lines, a citation alleging a serious violation of the Electric Power Transmission and Distribution Standard.
The cited provision requires employers to “ensure that no employee approaches or takes any conductive object closer to exposed energized parts than the employer’s established minimum approach distance, unless . . . (t)he energized part is insulated from the employee and from any other conductive object at a different potential.”
An administrative law judge had affirmed the citation, citing lapses in the company’s training program and contending it failed to anticipate issues at the worksite, among other rationales.
The full commission, noting the company’s training program and testimony on what occurred on the day of the accident, wrote that “it is clear from the record that (the company foreman) anticipated hazards on the job and implemented preventive measures.”
According to documents in the case, the foreman reminded workers that day in a pre-job briefing to cover up energized parts of the lines. “(W)e conclude that the Secretary has failed to show that (the company foreman) did not exercise reasonable diligence in overseeing the work on the day in question,” the commission said in overturning the ALJ’s decision.
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