One of the featured stories on Employment Law This Week – Epstein Becker Green’s new video program – is the Eleventh Circuit decision limiting the supervisory misconduct defense against OSHA citations.
At a construction worksite, a supervisor and his subordinate from Quinlan Enterprises were found working on a 15 foot wall without fall protection or a secure ladder. The company was held responsible for the OSHA violation, because, in most cases, a supervisor’s knowledge of a violation is imputed to the employer. Quinlan appealed citing the Eleventh Circuit’s Comtran decision. Comtran held that when a supervisor participates in the violation independently, that supervisor’s knowledge of the act is not sufficient to establish that the employer is aware. The Quinlan court disagreed, noting that the Comtran exception does not apply because the supervisor was not the sole participant in the violation.
View the episode below or read more about this decision in an earlier blog post.