Today we venture from Transportation for an interesting ruling in an asbestos case, a long-standing source of litigation in the Transport industry, and many others.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, based in Philadelphia, recently ruled that an employer can be penalized under OSHA asbestos removal rules without having to show any actual exposure to the substance. The Court's opinion, in Secretary of Labor v. Conoco Phillips Bayway Refinery, case no. 10-2893, held that the Secretary of Labor "must simply demonstrate the possibility" of exposure to harmful levels of asbestos. The presumption of "harm" is based on the conclusion that violation of Class II asbestos requirements alone "expose employees to substantial amounts of asbestos."
An interesting procedural note on this case was that the Third Circuit was resolving different interpretations of USDOL regulations among "two factions of the same government agency." The Secretary of Labor petitioned the Court for a review of the Occupational Safety and Helath Review Commission's decision that the violations were "not serious" as opposed to "serious" as the Secretary originally determined.
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