Safety Retaliation Cases Settled

08.02.2014
HR & Safety

West Springfield furniture retailer must pay former employee $12,500

OSHA has entered into an agreement with McKees Rocks Industrial Enterprises Inc. and James T. Lind, company president, resolving a lawsuit alleging a worker was wrongfully terminated for filing an OSHA complaint. OSHA inspected the Pennsylvania industrial park and terminal facility after the worker raised safety concerns. Following OSHA’s inspection, the worker was initially reassigned duties but later fired.

OSHA found the company violated Section 11(c) of the OSH Act when it fired the worker in retaliation for his safety complaint. The judgment provides the worker $100,000 in damages and the removal of all disciplinary action.

OSHA has also reached a settlement with Donald Pottern, doing business as Crown Furniture, after the agency found merit to a worker’s complaint that he had been fired by his employer two days after he filed a complaint with OSHA alleging safety and health hazards at the store.

Pottern will pay a former employee $12,500 and take other corrective action to resolve an anti-discrimination lawsuit filed against the West Springfield, Mass., furniture retailer by the U.S. Department of Labor after an OSHA investigation. To ensure payment, Pottern has provided the department with a security interest in a car that he owns, so that the department may lawfully secure possession and sell it to satisfy unpaid portions of the judgment, if necessary. Pottern must also expunge the former employee’s personnel record and provide a written, neutral job reference for him, if requested.

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