A federal administrative law judge has found UHS of Delaware and UHS of Fuller guilty after the corporations were accused of exposing employees at the Fuller Hospital in Attleboro to workplace violence without adequate protection in 2019, according to a recent release from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Fuller Hospital was inspected by the US Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and cited for a lack of safeguards, leading to the exposure of staff to violence, the release states. Over 500 incidents of aggression occurred at the hospital during a seven-month period, and the hospital had a low staffing level. UHS-DE and UHS-Fuller contested the citation, but an administrative law judge affirmed OSHA's serious citation, and the companies were sanctioned for destroying surveillance videos.
“Like any other employer, industry leaders like UHS of Delaware Inc. must comply with the law. When employers do not adequately protect their workers from workplace violence, the U.S. Department of Labor will use all legal tools at our disposal to make them do so," Maia Fisher, regional solicitor of labor in Boston, said in the release.
According to the release, the abatement measures included ensuring adequate staffing levels, personal panic alarms for employees, providing trained security personnel and conducting post-incident debriefings and investigations. Companies failing to provide a safe and healthful workplace for employees can be cited and fined by OSHA, Regional Administrator Galen Blanton said in the release. The companies have appealed the trial decision, and a related legal proceeding found them guilty of failing to comply with an OSHA-issued subpoena for the surveillance videos.
Workplace violence is a growing concern for employers and employees nationwide, Blanton said, with about two million American workers falling victim to it each year. The department's Office of the Solicitor in Boston litigated the case for OSHA, and the companies were represented by law firms Jackson Lewis P.C., Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, and Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP.
This comes as the release states a related previous legal proceeding led the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to order UHS-Fuller and UHS-DE to pay the department $30,515 in attorneys’ fees after they failed to comply with an OSHA-issued subpoena for the surveillance videos in this case.
