Secretary Of Labor V. Garden Ridge Case Summary

Megan Staton

OSHRC Case Study

Secretary of Labor v. Garden Ridge, Store #46

SAFE 4025

Case Introduction- On February 17, 2010, OSHA’s area office was obligated to send a compliance officer, David Bryan, to inspect a small home decor retail store named Garden Ridge, which was located on Chenal Parkway in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration had received an employee formal complaint in regards to a number of safety violations within their store. Bryan and his team had arrived at the store and was unfounded by the employee's complaints and did not notice any serious conditions at first site. Bryan made an opening conference with the General Manager named Michael McCullough, to introduce and explain

The Secretary stated that “under citation No. 1, Garden Ridge contends 1910.212 (a)(1) does not apply to the cited conditions. The company asserts OSHA’s Lockout/Tagout standard, at 1910.147, is the applicable standard. Garden Ridge also argues the Secretary establish its employees were exposed to a hazard while operating the garbage compactor. Under Citation No. 2, Garden Ridge concedes it violated 1904.40(b)(2), but contests the proposed penalty”( Secretary of Labor v. Garden Ridge pg. 2). Garden Ridge argued to the judge that they believed that the Lockout/Tagout standard was being intertwined with the issue that Bryan had on the guarding of the compactor. There was proof of the LOTO standard shown to McCollough that states that if there is any type of servicing or maintenance on equipment then there is a possibility that there could be an injury to the employees. Bryan had then began to testify to the court that he had asked McCollough for a copy of the LOTO for the garbage compactor and McCollough proceeded to tell him that they did not have a LOTO procedure in place for employees because the employees did not do any maintenance work on that specific piece of equipment and so this is why OSHA’s Secretary cited Garden Ridge for the guarding standard rather than the LOTO procedure/standard. McCollough later testified in court that he did not state that there was not LOTO procedure in their store to Bryan and that it was posted on the door near the machinery. “Garden Ridge is correct when it states the Secretary has “intertwined” the issues of LOTO and machine guarding. This intertwining began with the Secretary’s inartfully drafted alleged description violation for item 1 of Citation No. 1. Generally, machine guarding violations create conditions that expose employees to injuries from points of contact during the machine’s normal production