An administrative law judge has instructed a Rochester commercial roofing company to pay a $16,782 financial penalty for two serious fall protection and ladder safety violations.
The news comes after an extensive Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigation into Elmer W. Davis Inc., which allegedly revealed multiple safety violations.
These results included the roofing company’s inability to protect an employee from “a 40-foot fall hazard as they stood near the edge of a roof to guide a crane’s operation. OSHA also alleged the company allowed workers to use an unsafe ladder.”
OSHA investigation results in legal action and financial penalty
Elmer W. Davis Inc. is a staple of Western and Central New York and also performs roofing work in Pennsylvania. OSHA’s Syracuse office carried out the inspection. Trial attorney Julie Pittman and senior trial attorney David Rutenberg of the Regional Office of the Solicitor in New York litigated the case.
As part of the 2022 investigation, OSHA initially found that employees were not using the necessary and regulation fall protection during ongoing roofing work on the Village of Newark’s municipal building.
The OSHA investigation pursued two citations against the roofing company. One being the
allegation a worker was at risk of a 40-foot fall while directing a crane near the edge of a four-story building’s roof without using fall protection.
Following a trial before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, the judge announced that Elmer W. Davis knew of the fall protection violation because it was “readily visible to the company’s foreman and the company had failed to implement its safety program adequately.”
“As the U.S. Department of Labor’s vigorous litigation showed, and the judge appropriately held, Elmer W. Davis Inc. failed to protect employees from fall hazards and cannot claim permanent and complete freedom to commit violations,” said Regional Solicitor of Labor Jeffrey S. Rogoff in New York. “The department takes protecting employees from fall hazards very seriously.”
Image: BD Morgan Pixlr.
