Labor and employment partners, Chad T. Wishchuk and Marlene C. Nowlin, handled oral argument before the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento, California, relating to Cal/OSHA citations alleging Granite Construction exposed its employees to dust containing a harmful fungus that causes Valley Fever and failed to implement adequate measures to limit the exposure. For contractors, a serious citation acts as a black dot on their resume when bidding on public projects, severely damaging a contractor’s ability to secure future projects. The firm argued there was inadequate evidence to support the citations under General Industry Safety Order 5144(a)(1). The court agreed. In the published decision, the court held neither of the standards for evaluating employees’ exposure under General Industry Safety Order 5144(a)(1) are satisfied when a harmful contaminant is only, at most, speculatively present. This decision helped maintain Granite Construction’s history of safety compliance and set precedent to help contractors defeat overzealous prosecution by Cal/OSHA.
Read the full article that the Cal/OSHA Reporter Newsletter published here.
