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United States Court of Appeals Upholds General Contractor's OSHA Liability for Actions of Non-Employees by David D. Barricelli
Hinckley, Allen & Snyder LLP - Providence Office
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October 16, 2009
Previously published on October 2009
General contractors should think twice about the practices of subcontractors on their worksites as a result of a recent ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. In Solis v. Summit Contractors, Inc., the general contractor employed a project superintendent to supervise a worksite on which a subcontractor was employed. The project superintendent witnessed employees of the subcontractor working on scaffolding without fall protection, and advised them to correct the hazard. Although the subcontractors corrected the hazard, each time they relocated the scaffolding to a different area on the site, they continued to omit fall protection in violation of the general contractor's notice. The court held that the project superintendent's warning to the subcontractor's employees was not sufficient to avoid liability because the employees of the subcontractor recreated the hazard. The general contractor was cited even though its employee had issued a warning and the hazard had been corrected. The citation was issued to the general contractor whose only employees on the job site were supervisory in nature and were not exposed to the hazard.
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