Ringland-Johnson, Inc. v. Dunlop, RINGLAND-JOHNSO
| Decision Date | 23 March 1977 |
| Docket Number | RINGLAND-JOHNSO,INC,No. 76-1687,76-1687 |
| Citation | 551 F.2d 1117 |
| Parties | 5 O.S.H. Cas.(BNA) 1137, 1977-1978 O.S.H.D. ( 21,633 , Petitioner, v. John T. DUNLOP, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
I. John Rossi, Des Moines, Iowa, for petitioner.
William G. Staton, U. S. Dept. of Labor, Washington, D. C., for respondent; William J. Kilberg, Solicitor of Labor, Benjamin W. Mintz, Associate Solicitor for Occupational Safety & Health, Michael H. Levin, Counsel for Appellate Litigation, Allen H. Feldman, Asst. Counsel for Appellate Litigation, Washington, D. C., on brief.
Before MATTHES, Senior Circuit Judge, CLARK, Associate Justice, Retired, * and HEANEY, Circuit Judge.
The appellant, Ringland-Johnson, Inc., a general contractor engaged in business affecting commerce, has filed this petition for review of an Order of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC), finding it in violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). Specifically, Ringland-Johnson was found culpable for: (1) a serious violation of § 5(a)(1) of the Act for maintaining a grid work area on top of a scaffold 19.5 feet above the ground with openings sufficiently large for construction employees to fall through; (2) a non-serious violation of the Act for failing to provide a ladder or equivalent safe access to and from the grid work area on top of the scaffold; and (3) another non-serious violation of the Act for failure to guard the sides of an elevated plank runway.
Our careful review of the record leads us to deny the petition of Ringland-Johnson, Inc., and affirm the Order of the Commission.
1. The evidence is so overwhelming that we see no necessity to undertake a detailed review of it. Ringland-Johnson employees were performing resteel and concrete placement inside a circular concrete silo measuring 45 feet in diameter. The work surface was a grid area formed by placing 2 x 10 wooden planks on top of a scaffold structure. Numerous gaps existed in the working surface, many large enough for a man to fall through. As the work area was 191/2 feet above ground level, a fall could have resulted in serious injury or death to the employee.
A 10-foot long runway of two 2 x 10 planks ran between a scaffold platform outside of the bin and the grid on which the employees were situated inside the bin excavation, again at a height of 191/2 feet. There were no guard rails of any kind on either side of this plank runway.
Finally, employees used the horizontal support rungs at the end of the scaffold to ascend and descend...
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...the cited employer regarding the particulars of the citation. See, e.g., Royal Logging Co., 645 F.2d at 828; Ringland-Johnson, Inc. v. Dunlop, 551 F.2d 1117, 1118 (8th Cir.1977); REA Express, Inc. v. Brennan, 495 F.2d 822, 826 (2d Cir.1974); Swift & Co., 393 F.2d at 252. Indeed, we have hel......
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