Conn Maciel Carey LLP (CMC), a boutique law firm with national practices in labor and employment, workplace safety (OSHA and MSHA), and litigation, is pleased to announce that Mark Ishu has joined the firm’s Chicago office as a Senior Counsel.

Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Ishu spent over a decade serving as a Trial Attorney for the United States Department of Labor, Office of the Solicitor, where he prosecuted civil violations under federal labor statutes for the Occupational Safety and Health Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, , Mine Safety and Health Act, Employee Retirement Income Security Act, Davis Bacon Act, Service Contract Act, Immigration Nationality Act (H-1B, H-2B, H-2A), and whistleblower statutes. During his tenure, he was dedicated to fostering, promoting, and protecting the welfare of wage earners, job seekers, and retirees in improving working conditions, advancing opportunities for profitable employment, and assuring work-related benefits and rights.

Co-Managing Partner, Aaron Gelb, says “After litigating several significant citations with Mark on the other side representing OSHA, I came to respect him as a worthy adversary and like him as a person.  Continue reading →

This coming Tuesday, February 21, 2023 at 1 p.m. EST, join Nicholas W. Scala for a webinar regarding MSHA’s 2022 in Review and 2023 Forecast.

With 2022 behind us, now is the time to take stock of the state of MSHA as the Biden Administration enters its third year. MSHA’s senior political leadership is now in place, and with that, we expect to see MSHA’s true agenda for rulemaking and enforcement take shape and be put into action.

This webinar will review the past year’s enforcement trends and initiatives, as well as the regulatory agenda, highlighting the evolution of MSHA, and its priorities for the coming year.

Participants in this webinar will learn the following:

• 2022 MSHA enforcement data, predictions for future areas of emphasis
• Enforcement trends, initiatives, and areas of emphasis
• MSHA’s rulemaking agenda for the year

Click here to register for the February 21st webinar. Continue reading →

By: Nicholas W. Scala & Ashley Mitchell 

Adhering to what is now an annual requirement since the passage of the Inflation Adjustment Act in 2016, on January 13th the Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA) published a Final Rule updating the penalties used when assessing fines for citations and orders for the coming year. The increased penalties will determine assessments for mine production operators and independent contractors for all citations and orders assessed after January 15th. This annual update to MSHA’s penalty authority is tied to national inflation metrics, meaning when there is significant inflation in the economy, the penalty increase is greater. This year the penalty increase is slightly above 7% from 2022. 

For the most basic citations like 104(a) Citations, the increase is minimal. The statutory minimum penalty for regularly assessed penalties increases from $148 to $159. The increase becomes more noticeable when citations and orders are classified more seriously and therefore creep further up MSHA’s regular assessment penalty conversion chart. For example, the statutory maximum for regularly assessed penalties under 30 C.F.R. Section 100.3 is now $85,580 up from $79,428 in 2022.

Other increases of note include:

• Minimum Penalty for 104(d)(1) Citation/Order
  • An increase from $2,648 to $2,853
• Minimum Penalty for 104(d)(2) Order
  • An increase from $5,293 to $5,703
• Minimum Penalty for Failure to Notify MSHA of an Accident within 15 Minutes
  • An increase from $6,620 to $7,133 (the maximum follows Section 100.3 max listed above)
• Maximum Daily Penalty for Failing to Abate MSHA Citation (104(b) Order)
  • An increase from $8,605 to $9,271
• Maximum Penalty for Flagrant Violations under Section 110(b)(2)
  • An increase from $291,234 to $313,790

Annually, MSHA has until January 15th of each calendar year to increase the penalty assessment limits. The new penalties will become evident as mine operators begin to receive Proposed Assessments and Statements of Accounts from MSHA following the issuance of citations or orders from now forward in 2023. The increase in penalties in no way impacts mine operators’ option to contest any assessed citation or order, and as penalties continue to increase MSHA may find more operators contesting to ease the financial burden.

(For more information on the history of these increases see our 2016 blog post on the implementation of the Inflation Adjustment Act and its Catch-up Provisions by the Department of Labor)

Conn Maciel Carey LLP (CMC), a boutique law firm with national practices in labor and employment, workplace safety (OSHA and MSHA), and litigation, is pleased to announce that Daniel Deacon has been elevated to Partner.

Mr. Deacon, based in the Washington, DC office, advises and represents employers on a wide range of employment-related issues, including handling wage and hour disputes, claims of discrimination, harassment and retaliation, compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), trade secret matters, as well as inspections, investigations and enforcement actions by OSHA, MSHA, and state OSH agencies.

Mr. Deacon joined the firm in 2015, one year after CMC was founded. “With the exception of a judicial clerkship for the 18th Judicial Circuit of Virginia, Dan has been with our team since he was a summer associate, so in a very real sense, he is one of the founders of this firm and has always been an important part of our success,” says Eric Conn, a co-founding partner and Chair of the firm’s national OSHA Practice. “It has been such a joy to watch Dan grow as an attorney into one of the rising stars of the OSHA defense bar.”

“I am so proud to have witnessed Dan advance from a Continue reading →

From all of us here in the national MSHA Workplace Safety Practice Group at Conn Maciel Carey, to all of you, happy holidays and happy New Year.  We wish you a joyful and safe holiday season.

Please enjoy this holiday greeting from the CMC family to your family:

We have so much to be thankful for at Conn Maciel Carey, but most of all, we thank you all for continuing to turn to us for counsel and legal services.  Please contact us if you have questions about any of the topics we have covered here on the MSHA Defense Report blog, or if you have ideas for other subjects we should be covering.  And of course, contact any of us if there is ever anything our national MSHA Workplace Safety Practice Group at Conn Maciel Carey can do to help you or your company with MSHA law issues.

Conn Maciel Carey LLP, a Washington, D.C.-based boutique law firm with a national focus on OSHA/MSHA • Workplace Safety and Labor • Employment, is pleased to announce that Victoria Voight is now with the firm as an Of Counsel attorney in both the firm’s OSHA and Employment law practices.

Over four decades, Ms. Voight served the State of North Carolina in the Attorney General’s Office, ultimately as the Head of the Labor Section for eighteen years. In that role, Ms. Voight supervised all legal services provided to the North Carolina Department of Labor, principally in the areas of occupational safety and health (for North Carolina OSHA), wage and hour, retaliation, and employment discrimination. With that background, Ms. Voight brings to private practice a unique perspective, unparalleled experience, and key relationships with officials in North Carolina state government.

Ms. Voight is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she now provides the full range of workplace safety and health regulatory and employment law services for employers in North Carolina and around the country. She advises clients in relation to inspections, investigations and enforcement actions involving the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and State OSH Plans, particularly NCOSHA. She also counsels employers in all aspects of the employer-employee relationship, including wage and hour disputes and claims of employment discrimination and retaliation.

“From the other side of the table, I was always impressed with the attorneys at Conn Maciel Carey when they were advocating for employers in disputes with NCOSHA. They brought credibility, creativity, and a safety-focused approach to every case we had opposite each other, and that was so refreshing and effective for their clients.” said Ms. Voight. She added, Continue reading →