Various options to resolve OSHA citations, including direct negotiations, hearings, and appeals

ARLINGTON, TX, USA, October 25, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- When an employer receives an official notice of alleged violations of OSHA standards, they have a short deadline to decide upon, and take, the best course of action to resolve those citations and their associated monetary penalties.

And an expert in OSHA compliance says that in too many cases, employers fail to carefully evaluate their options and pick the proper strategy to combat the citations and associated monetary penalties.

“Too many times, an employer will just accept their OSHA citations without attempting to have them reduced in severity classification, or even dropped”, says Curtis Chambers, a nationally-recognized expert in OSHA compliance matters.

“Then the employer will begrudgingly pay their fines, which could exceed $14,000 per citation issued, and dismiss everything as ‘just the cost of doing business.’ However, that short-sighted approach exposes the employer to future OSHA citations classified as Repeat or Willful, and those types of citations could carry monetary penalties upwards of $140,000 apiece.”

Mr. Chambers explains in his latest post to The OSHA Training Blog that there are several avenues the employer can take in response to receiving Federal OSHA citations and penalties. Those options all have deadlines and filing requirements, and should be discussed and selected with the guidance of their attorney. Options available to employers include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Accept the OSHA citations and penalties, leaving them as a permanent entry on their record of OSHA inspection history;
• Accept an Expedited Settlement Agreement, if one is offered by OSHA when they issue the citations and penalties;
• Request an Informal Conference with the OSHA Area Office who issued the citations and penalties, and enter into negotiations with OSHA to have some or all of them reclassified or deleted, and/or the penalties reduced or dropped;
• File a formal Letter of Contest with OSHA, then have a hearing in front of an Administrative Law Judge, or ALJ, who will decide the validity of contested citations and penalties, as well as abatement dates);
• Appeal the decision of an ALJ to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC), who can uphold, modify, or delete contested citations and penalties; and last but not least,
• Appeal a OSHRC decision to the appropriate U.S. Federal Court of Appeals, and then ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“An employer can fight, and beat, OSHA citations and penalties that are improperly cited”, say Mr. Chambers. “The benefits of doing so could more than offset the future exposure to more costly and incriminating OSHA citations and penalties that could be issued later because the employer did not follow the best course of action the first time they were cited.”

Mr. Chambers also notes that employer needs to be aware that State Plan OSHA programs will have similar, but state-specific, procedures for resolving citations issued by their agencies.


About Curtis Chambers and OSHA Training Services Inc.

Curtis Chambers is a board-certified safety professional (CSP) with a master’s degree in occupational safety and health, and over 32 years of experience in OSHA training and compliance assistance. He is also President of OSHA Training Services Inc., who provides on-site OSHA training classes throughout the United States for groups of eight or more students. They also offer on-demand computer-based OSHA training courses on a variety of the major general industry and construction topics, including online OSHA 10 and OSHA 30-hour training courses, and a comprehensive online Introduction to OSHA training course designed for business owners and safety personnel that expands on many facets of OSHA compliance.

Curtis Chambers
oshatraining.com
+1 877-771-6742
curtis.chambers@oshatraining.com