Judge: Company's Violation of Logout/Tagout Not 'Willful'

An administrative law judge with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission on Friday reduced by more than 80% a steel manufacturer’s fine over a worker’s death after it found that the Secretary of Labor failed to prove in part that violations the logout/tagout standards were “intentional.” A worker was maintaining a machine at a Commercial Metals Co. facility in Sayreville, New Jersey, in 2022 when the machine unexpectedly energized, killing the worker. As documented in Secretary of Labor v. Commercial Metals Company, d/b/a CMC Steel New Jersey, and ...