Teichert Construction v. California Occupational Safety & Health Appeals Board

Teichert Construction (Teichert) sought to overturn a decision of the California Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board (the Board) which upheld a citation issued by the California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Occupational Safety and Health (the Division) for violation of a safety order, and assessed Teichert a civil penalty of $5,000. In Teichert’s view, the safety order is unconstitutionally vague, and the Board failed to determine whether Teichert’s conduct was reasonable. Teichert appeals from the superior court’s denial of its petition for a writ of administrative mandate. We shall affirm the judgment.

As we will explain, the requirement that hauling and earth moving operations “be controlled in such a manner as to ensure that equipment or vehicle operators know of the presence of . . . workers on foot in the areas of their operations” is not impermissibly vague. A reasonable and practical construction of the regulation puts businesses, like Teichert, on notice that (1) they must control hauling and earth moving operations in a manner to ensure equipment operators know of a worker’s location on foot within the immediate vicinity of the…