CONN-OSHA Answers Your Safety Questions: November 2022

Welcome to our monthly column featuring CONN-OSHA experts answering some of the most commonly asked safety questions from CBIA member companies.

Most of the responses from Catherine Zinsser, a CONN-OSHA occupational safety training specialist, will be on recordkeeping since that is the focus of most questions she fields.

But if you’d like to ask her a question on another topic, please email CBIA’s Phillip Montgomery.

He will treat all questions confidentially and never share any identifying company information with CONN-OSHA or anyone else.

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Q: An office employee is driving a company vehicle on their normal commute to the office. When hitting the breaks, the employee is struck by an unsecured object in the vehicle. If the employee requires medical treatment would this have to be recorded?

No. For OSHA recordkeeping purposes, an employee’s normal commute from home to office and return would not be considered work-related. 

Therefore, any injury or illness occurring during this trip would not be recordable. 

The fact that the vehicle was a company vehicle is not relevant to determining work relatedness.

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Q: If an employee is injured, but the workers compensation carrier denies the claim due to the injury being ‘not in the scope of employment,’ should the injury still be recorded on the OSHA 300 log?

When an injury or illness occurs to an employee, the employer must independently analyze the case in light of both the OSHA recording criteria and the requirements of the state workers’ compensation system to determine whether the case is recordable or compensable, or both.

Your case must be judged by the criteria of the OSHA recordkeeping rule to determine if it should be placed on the 300 Log. 

Workers’ compensation is not a consideration of whether the case is OSHA recordable or not.

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Q: If an employee sustains an injury while on a paid break period, is the injury work-related?

Break or pay status does not determine the outcome for recordkeeping. 

If the employee experienced an injury or illness in the work environment it would be considered work-related unless one of the work-related exceptions applied.

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For more information, contact CBIA’s Phillip Montgomery (860.244.1982).