Hughes Gen. Contractors, Inc. v. Utah Labor Comm’n

The Utah Occupational Safety and Health Division (UOSH) cited and fined Hughes General Contractors, which oversaw a construction project involving over 100 subcontractors, for a subcontractor’s violation on the project. In determining that Hughes was responsible for safety conditions for the subcontractor’s employees, the UOSH invoked the multi-employer worksite doctrine, which makes a general contractor responsible for the occupational safety of all workers on a worksite, including those who are not the contractor’s employees. Both an administrative law judge and the Labor Commission’s Appeals Board upheld the citation and the multi-employer worksite doctrine, which federal OSHA regulations have adopted and federal courts have upheld. The Supreme Court reversed the citation and penalty, holding (1) the multi-employer worksite doctrine is incompatible with the governing Utah statute, Utah Code 34A-6-201(1; (2) the responsibility for ensuring occupational safety under the governing statute is limited to an employer’s responsibility to its employees; and (3) because Hughes was not an employer of the workers in question in this case, Hughes was improperly cited and sanctioned. View "Hughes Gen. Contractors, Inc. v. Utah Labor Comm’n" on Justia Law