On July 13, 2017, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals was tasked with deciding what constitutes a “machine” under OSHA’s lockout/tag-out (LOTO) standard (29 C.F.R. § 1910.147). Sec’y of Labor v. Action Elec. Co., 868 F.3d 1324 (11th Cir. 2017). Specifically, the court had to decide under what circumstances different pieces of equipment are considered one “machine” thus mandating that all pieces of equipment that comprise the “machine” must be de-energized when employees are only servicing one of the pieces of equipment.
