OSHA Affirms Court Order to Vacate Citations for Amputation Injury

Thursday, April 7, 2022 | 0

The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission affirmed a court order to vacate citations against a Vineland, New Jersey, manufacturer for an amputation injury after an administrative law judge found that the Secretary of Labor failed to establish whether the company’s communication of rules and training were inadequate.

In May 2016, an AJM Packaging Corp. employee suffered an amputation injury while clearing a paper jam on one of the facility’s machines. As a result, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspected the facility and issued a one-item, four-instance repeat citation alleging a violation of a provision of the lockout/tagout standard, court documents state.

Following a hearing, an administrative law judge vacated the citation. Upon review, Instance (d) of the violation was at issue before the commission, that “Lockout procedures were not utilized and lockout devices were not affixed by an authorized employee performing tasks such as, but not limited to, clearing jams on the Peerless Cutting Machine,” documents state.

The question for the Review Commission was whether AJM should have known “with the exercise of reasonable diligence that employees raised the PCM’s scrap chute to clear paper jams,” documents state. The judge found the record lacked sufficient evidence to establish that AJM should have known of this practice, and the commission agreed.

The matters in question included AJM’s alleged failures on adequate work rule and training, adequate supervision, anticipating hazards, and enforcement of work rules. On these matters, the judge ruled that the Secretary of Labor failed to establish that AJM committed any of the alleged violations.

The commission affirmed Friday, also finding that the secretary failed to show that AJM should have known of the conditions constituting the alleged violation, and ordered to vacate Instance (d) of the citation.

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