A 12-Day Restriction, a Skeptical Superintendent, and Someone Else's Scaffold
You are the safety supervisor for a 38-employee structural steel subcontractor on a six-story commercial project; the construction manager controls the site. On Tuesday an ironworker strained his lower back handling a bundle of rebar. He finished the shift, saw a physician the next morning, and returned with a note restricting him to 20 pounds of lifting and no ladder climbing for 12 calendar days. No workdays were lost beyond the injury date. The CM superintendent tells you the case is 'first aid, nothing to report' and asks you not to 'mess up the project's EMR.' That afternoon an OSHA compliance officer arrives for a programmed inspection prompted by a complaint about a scaffold erected by the masonry subcontractor. Your crews walk past that scaffold daily, and last week one of your apprentices was seen carrying material across it. Your owner wants to know 'how much of this is ours.'
1. Is the back strain recordable, and what exactly must be entered, where, and by when? Address the superintendent's 'first aid' claim.
Read the worked answer
Reason from the definition, not from the physician's label. A case is recordable if it involves medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, days away, restricted work or transfer to another job, or a significant diagnosis. The clinic visit alone is not decisive, but 12 calendar days of a 20-pound limit plus no ladder climbing is restricted work: the employee cannot perform the full range of his normal duties. That makes this a job transfer/restriction case even with no lost days.
Actions:
- Enter the case on the OSHA 300 Log within 7 calendar days of learning of it - the clock starts when you receive the information, not when the physician writes the note.
- Check the injury column and the job transfer or restriction column; enter 12 in the days-of-restriction column (calendar days the restriction applies, excluding the day of injury, capped at 180).
- No 8-hour or 24-hour report to OSHA is triggered: no fatality, in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye.
- Carry the case into the annual 300A summary, posted February 1 through April 30, and into any electronic submission the establishment is required to make.
- Keep the physician's note and a short rationale for the recording decision.
The 'first aid' characterization is wrong, and entering it that way would be a falsification issue. Point out that hiding the entry does not change the experience modification either - the claim already exists because the employee saw a physician.
2. The compliance officer asks about the masonry scaffold. What is your company's exposure under the multi-employer worksite doctrine, and what should you have done and do now?
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Under the multi-employer policy, OSHA can cite the employer that created the hazard, an employer whose employees were exposed, an employer with authority to correct it, and the controlling employer. Ask which hats yours wears. You did not erect the scaffold, so you are not the creating employer, and you are not the controlling employer for the masonry scope - the CM is. But your crews pass it daily and an apprentice carried material across it, so you are an exposing employer, and that duty is real: you must take reasonable steps to protect your own people.
In order:
- Instruct your crews in writing not to use or pass under the scaffold; verify the message reached every crew, including new hires and anyone who joined after the briefing.
- Notify the masonry subcontractor and the CM in writing - date, time, specific deficiency, requested correction - and keep copies. Verbal notice is not defensible.
- Re-inspect your own work areas and access routes and control what you control: barricades, alternate routes, tool-box briefings.
- If the condition persists while your employees remain exposed, escalate: keep your crews out of the area and document the escalation to the owner.
In the interview, be factual about what you saw, what you communicated, and when. Do not accept ownership of another employer's equipment, and do not minimize your own exposure duty - exposing-employer citations are real and can carry repeat or per-instance weighting.
3. How do you handle the superintendent's request not to record the case?
Read the worked answer
The request is to conceal a recordable injury. Decline clearly and without drama, and take the ambiguity out of the moment: 'This one is recordable under 1904.7 - restricted work for 12 days. I will have the log entry done by Friday and I will walk you through it.'
Reasons to give him:
- The recording decision is defined by the rule, not by project preference, and falsifying the log exposes the company and him personally.
- Retaliation against an injured worker or anyone who reports is prohibited; if the request is repeated, the request itself becomes evidence.
- His premise is wrong: the experience modification is driven by claims and reserves, and this claim already exists because the employee saw a physician.
Then document: a short file memo with date and who said what, not to punish him but to show what you did. Escalate only if the instruction is repeated or the entry is actually left off the log - first to your own operations manager, then to the CM's safety director if the log is being manipulated.
Afterward, offer the superintendent a five-minute briefing on first aid versus restricted work. Most of these conflicts are ignorance of the rule, not malice - but the log stays correct either way, and a supervisor who understands restriction cases stops creating the conflict.