Occupational safety and health: investigations

Willful safety violations that cause serious injury, illness, or exposure can now trigger criminal penalties, not only those causing death or lasting impairment. The law also requires faster reporting, review, and referral of major workplace incidents.

What the law does ​

• Makes willfully blocking or interfering with Cal/OSHA inspections or investigations a misdemeanor.
• Makes a willful workplace-safety violation a crime when it causes serious injury, illness, or exposure.
• Requires the Bureau of Investigations to investigate willful-violation cases involving serious injury, illness, or exposure, and other major incidents.
• Requires the division to promptly notify prosecutors and its Bureau of Investigations about qualifying serious incidents, including serious exposures.
• Requires written Bureau of Investigations case-review policies, documented reasons for nonreferrals, and routine information-sharing from the division.
• Allows confidential trade-secret and other protected inspection information to be shared with law enforcement and prosecutors for investigations or prosecutions.
• Requires annual reporting to the Legislature on Bureau of Investigations activity, referrals, outcomes, nonreferrals, and certain declined fatality prosecutions; details of those declined-prosecution reports remain confidential.

Who it affects ​

• Employers and supervisors responsible for workplace conditions or employees.
• Workers involved in serious workplace accidents, illnesses, or exposures.
• Division of Occupational Safety and Health inspectors and the Bureau of Investigations.
• Fire and police agencies, district attorneys, and other prosecutors responding to or handling qualifying incidents.

Context ​

Serious incidents involving five or more employees, a death, or a prosecution request require immediate notice to prosecutors.

Breakdown ​

Stronger Penalties for Obstructing Safety Investigations ​

The bill makes it a misdemeanor to deliberately obstruct Division of Occupational Safety and Health officials while they carry out investigation and inspection duties, or to deliberately disobey a related court order. It also expands criminal liability for willful workplace-safety violations that cause serious injury, illness, or exposure, not just death or permanent or prolonged bodily impairment. Because it creates and expands crimes, it requires local enforcement activity.

Key takeaways

• Deliberately resisting, preventing, impeding, or interfering with the division chief or an authorized representative performing investigation or inspection duties becomes a misdemeanor.
• Deliberately violating a court order related to those investigation or inspection duties becomes a misdemeanor.
• A willful violation of a workplace safety or health standard or order can be a public offense when it causes serious injury, illness, or exposure.
• Previously, the stated criminal consequences for this type of willful violation applied when it caused death or permanent or prolonged bodily impairment.
• Creating a new crime and expanding an existing one imposes a state-mandated local program.

Workplace Accident Investigations ​

The bill expands when the Bureau of Investigations must investigate workplace accidents, including cases involving a willful violation citation and a serious injury, illness, or exposure. It requires written review procedures, faster information sharing and prosecutor notification, and greater cooperation on accepted criminal investigations. It also expands the bureau’s annual reporting, while keeping specified fatality-referral details confidential.

Key takeaways

• The bureau must investigate accidents involving a serious injury, illness, or exposure when the division issues a citation for a willful violation.
• The bureau must create written policies and procedures for reviewing cases and deciding whether to investigate them or refer them for prosecution.
• The division must use a routine or automated process to send the bureau information about incidents involving serious injuries, illnesses, or exposures for review.
• The division must immediately notify the appropriate prosecutor of accidents involving five or more employees with serious injuries, illnesses, or exposures, a death, or a prosecution request from a division representative.
• At a prosecutor’s request, the bureau may refer potential criminal cases to the appropriate prosecutor, and the bureau and division must cooperate with prosecutors on cases accepted for investigation.
• The bureau’s annual report must also go to the Legislature and include specified information about fatality cases referred for prosecution, but those details are confidential.

Workplace Accident Reporting and Trade Secrets ​

The bill allows Cal/OSHA trade-secret information to be shared with law enforcement officers and prosecutors for criminal investigations or prosecutions. It also expands reporting rules for serious workplace incidents to include serious exposures, requires notice to the local district attorney, and requires Cal/OSHA to notify specified enforcement agencies regardless of how it learned of the incident.

Key takeaways

• Cal/OSHA may disclose confidential information that could reveal a trade secret to law enforcement officers or prosecutors for a law enforcement investigation or prosecution.
• Serious workplace exposures, in addition to serious injuries, illnesses, and deaths, trigger the accident-reporting requirements.
• Fire or police agencies responding to a covered workplace accident must immediately notify both the nearest Cal/OSHA office and the district attorney's office in the county where the accident occurred.
• Cal/OSHA must immediately notify the bureau and the district attorney's office or another appropriate prosecuting authority of the accident.
• Cal/OSHA's notification duty applies whether it learned of the accident from a responding agency, the employer, or another source.

Public Access Findings ​

The bill makes the findings required when a law limits public access to government records or meetings. These findings state that the limitation is needed to protect the interest at issue.

Key takeaways

• The bill includes legislative findings supporting its limits on public access to government information.
• California’s Constitution requires these findings when a statute restricts access to public meetings or records.
• The findings are intended to explain the interest being protected and why the restriction is necessary.

No State Reimbursement Required ​

The bill states that local agencies and school districts do not need to be reimbursed for costs caused by this act. It gives a specified reason for exempting the act from the usual state-reimbursement requirement.

Key takeaways

• The bill says the state will not reimburse local agencies or school districts for costs imposed by this act.
• The bill invokes a specified reason to exempt the act from the usual reimbursement requirement.
• This provision addresses funding responsibility rather than changing workplace safety investigation rules.