OSHA Enforcement in 2026: What Significant Cases Reveal About Instance-by-Instance Penalties, Enterprise-Wide Exposure, and Multi-Jurisdiction Risk

Presented by Eric J. Conn, Rachel L. Conn, Aaron R. Gelb, and Mark Ishu

Building on recent enforcement developments, significant OSHA cases decided over the past year reveal an agency testing the outer bounds of its enforcement authority—and adjudicators increasingly focused on where those limits lie. Rather than operating as isolated disputes, these cases illustrate broader enforcement trends involving the expanded use of instance-by-instance penalties, renewed attention to the unit of prosecution, and efforts to extend enforcement consequences beyond a single worksite.

This webinar examines what significant federal OSHA cases are telling us about how enforcement strategy is evolving, where OSHA is gaining traction, and where courts and the Review Commission are drawing lines. Using recent litigation and high-impact enforcement actions as guideposts, the session focuses on how penalty exposure is being multiplied, how enterprise-wide implications are being asserted, and why classification and notice issues are increasingly outcome-determinative.

The program will also address California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) as a distinct but important component of this landscape. Significant California cases and enforcement actions demonstrate a different path to corporate-wide impact, often through abatement expectations, programmatic remedies, and settlement leverage—creating practical “crossover” risks for multi-state employers even when legal regimes remain separate.

Designed for in-house counsel, safety and EHS professionals, HR leaders, and compliance teams, this session translates case-driven enforcement trends into practical guidance for managing inspections, defending citations, and responding to enforcement in a way that limits, rather than expands, enterprise-wide exposure.

Participants in this webinar will learn:

• What recent significant OSHA cases reveal about the expanded use—and limits—of instance-by-instance penalties
• How courts are re-centering enforcement disputes on the unit of prosecution
• When OSHA’s enterprise-wide theories are gaining traction and when they are being rejected\
• Why violation classification and fair notice are increasingly decisive issues
• How Cal/OSHA cases create practical corporate-wide risk for multi-state employers
• Strategies for responding to significant cases in a way that contains exposure and preserves defenses