Sometimes a lawyer or set of lawyers can surprise us…
This is a quote from a recent OSHRC ALJ decision, regarding the employer’s responsibility to conduct inspections of the workplace to identify and correct hazards:
"As an employer, Respondent is obligated to provide safe working conditions and ensure safe work practices. Implicit in that obligation is the requirement to inspect the workplace and correct unsafe working conditions. Failing to conduct inspections does not absolve an employer of damaging knowledge it would otherwise have gained. Rather, the failure to conduct inspections when such inspections would have revealed a hazard is akin to sticking your head in the sand and mandates the same result as if Respondent was directly aware of the hazard. Accordingly, the Court finds Respondent knew or, with the exercise of reasonable diligence, could have known of the hazardous condition."
Source: OSHC, ALJ Joshua R. Patrick