Court Considers if Not Testing Machine Bolts Is OSHA Violation

A Pennsylvania-based utility contractor’s alleged failure to properly test bolts on machinery—leading to a worker’s fatal accident—was central to a federal appeals court panel’s consideration of the contractor’s challenge to OSHA citations.

The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Henkels & McCoy Inc., a subsidiary of MasTec Inc., after the investigation of a May 2018 fatal accident in Jacksonville, Fla., uncovered that the digger derrick—a truck with a boom attachment often used to remove and install utility poles—involved in the incident hadn’t been fully tested in at least a decade. The worker died when a crane-like boom broke ...