The federal Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission has vacated a citation issued to a company after a worker fell 105 feet to his death from a crane platform while performing upgrades to a communications tower in Georgia.
The commission found that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration failed to prove all elements necessary to uphold a $15,343 fine against ACrane Rental LLC, which received the penalty after the fatality at a strip mall parking lot in Norcross on March 21, 2019. The case is Secretary of Labor v. ACrane Rental LLC.
The commission, in reversing OSHA, determined that ACrane was not a controlling employer at the time of the accident, and was not the employer of the exposed workers at the job site. ACrane was one of five companies at the construction site on the day of the fatality.
The commission also determined that OSHA erred in finding that an ACrane supervisor had actual knowledge of the alleged violation at the worksite – the overloading of the crane platform used to lift workers to the communications tower.