This casebook is about occupational safety and health: the ways in which work causes or exacerbates disease and injury, and the ways in which law responds. It is about administrative, public health, and employment law – all rolled into one. The first sections provide an overview of the field and then focus on regulatory intervention: how the government, through law, regulates the behavior of employers. In essence, this takes our focus to the relationship between the administrative regulatory bodies and employers. After a brief pause to investigate questions regarding the constitutionality of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the second major part of the course looks at questions through an employment law lens. Here, the focus is on the relationship between employers and employees – though regulatory intervention will continue to be relevant. The final sections ask the question: What kinds of protections are available for workers who are injured on the job? Here, the focus turns to questions of compensation and employment rights for workers with persistent disabilties arising out of work. 

These materials are current as of mid-2025. In January 2025, Donald Trump took office as President and embarked on a deregulatory campaign that has undercut federal enforcement and threatened the powers of federal administrative agencies. As of August 2025, the federal structure that was built to ensure worker health and safety is under threat, but few substantive changes have, as yet, occurred. Readers of these materials will want to investigate recent changes to enforcement activities as well as changes in regulations.