Whistleblowers · Food Safety · Retaliation A Former Garrett Popcorn Director Reported Food-Safety Concerns. Her Retaliation Appeal Failed. Aisha Putnam complained about labeling, expiring chocolate and a leaking roof, then contacted the FDA anonymously. The Seventh Circuit’s ruling turned not…
Worker Safety · Ohio Supreme Court Jose Camara suffered permanent injuries after his clothing caught in exposed farm machinery. A jury found that Gill Dairy deliberately removed safety guards. Ohio’s highest court has now ruled that an appeals court used…
Environmental enforcement A federal inspection documented seven physical safety issues and a poorly tracked hazard-review process at a New Brockton, Alabama, facility holding 28,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia. Ben E. Keith agreed to pay $55,864 without admitting or denying the…
Environmental enforcement At a Pennsylvania commercial laundry, recovered solvents moved through pumps, valves and pipes into a 6,000-gallon tank. EPA’s settlement says required inspections, equipment identification and leak monitoring repeatedly failed to follow that waste stream. Source: U.S. EPA Region…
Environmental enforcement · Hawaii The Environmental Protection Agency alleges that I. Kitagawa and Company continued using large-capacity cesspools at two commercial properties long after federal rules required their closure. Based on EPA Region 9 docket SDWA-09-2026-0084 · Consent agreement subject…
Wage law · Long-term care AssureCare paid live-in caregivers a flat daily rate while their work stretched from early morning into interrupted nights. Washington’s Supreme Court held that the state’s wage exemption was unconstitutional as applied to caregivers in adult…
Land rights · Energy infrastructure · Tribal sovereignty A federal appeals court affirmed that Enbridge has operated Line 5 across 12 trust parcels without legal permission since 2013. It also gave the company more time to reroute the pipeline and…
Air Pollution · Oil and Gas · EPA Enforcement Inspectors reported hydrocarbon emissions escaping from storage tanks and flares at EOG Resources sites. The resulting agreement requires a civil penalty, two years of monitoring and a separate $2 million engine…
Tenth Circuit decision filed September 29, 2026 Workers’ Rights TL;DR The Boilermaker-Blacksmith National Pension Trust offered early-retirement benefits to eligible boilermakers before age 65. The trustees interpreted the plan to mean that a boilermaker could lose those benefits by taking…
Chemical Safety · EPA Enforcement At an Oregon facility storing more than a regulatory threshold of anhydrous hydrogen chloride, the EPA alleged gaps in hazard analysis and contractor safeguards. Rinchem neither admitted nor denied the allegations and certified that they…