Exxon Mobil’s challenge to a $691 fine has led an appellate court to strike down a Clinton-era federal mental health regulation.
The case mixes workplace health and safety regulations, a harrowing 2021 refinery fire, and the Supreme Court’s recent ruling giving judges more power to strike down federal rules.
“However commendable [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s] desire to improve mental health in the workplace, like all agencies, OSHA’s authority to regulate toward that end is constrained by the limits of power Congress delegated to the agency,” wrote Judge Cory Wilson of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a Trump appointee. “OSHA’s reading of [the Occupational Safety and Health Act] to encompass the power to regulate workplace mental illnesses may be plausible. But the best reading of the statute is narrower: that ‘illnesses,’ as used there, refers to physical, and not mental, work-related ailments and conditions.”
In the early morning hours on Dec. 23, 2021, a major fire broke out at Exxon Mobil’s sprawling Baytown refinery complex in Texas.
A male process technician whose identity was kept anonymous in the proceedings was among those who responded, gearing up to guide firefighters through the conflagration to fuel valves that had be shut off. He later went back in to close more valves in what the 5th Circuit called a “hellish trip.”
The worker subsequently was diagnosed by two licensed clinical social workers and his primary care physician with post-traumatic stress disorder from the incident, which was reported to Exxon. But the company concluded the social workers and doctor lacked the training or experience to diagnose a “recordable work-related mental illnesses.”
The worker met with another provider, a Houston psychologist listed in Exxon’s employee assistance program, who also diagnosed him with PTSD from the fire and recommended six months’ leave.
Exxon accepted that diagnosis but asked the worker to meet with another provider for a second opinion, as allowed under OSHA regulations. The worker refused, reasoning the Houston psychologist effectively was a second opinion after three other providers had already diagnosed him.
Instead, Exxon sent the worker’s file to the provider, who concluded he did not have work-related PTSD. Exxon thus found the employee “did not have a recordable work-related mental illness.”
The Baytown facility’s union reported that finding to OSHA, which after an investigation issued an “other-than-serious” violation of recordkeeping standards for not recording the mental illness. Ultimately, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission issued a $691 fine.
The worker eventually returned to his position, according to the December 2024 decision from an administrative law judge at the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, which Exxon later appealed to the 5th Circuit. (Two other workers made similar mental health claims after the fire, but the ALJ vacated those alleged violations.)
Sidestepping the specifics of the case, Exxon argued OSHA lacked the authority to require reporting of workplace mental illnesses.
The law requires reporting of “work-related deaths, injuries and illnesses,” which OSHA, in a regulation issued in the final days of the Clinton administration in 2001, interpreted to include work-related mental illnesses.
“Although the term ‘illness’ used in isolation today sometimes refers to mental illnesses, that is not the best reading of the term ‘illnesses’ in the context of adjacent terms and the broader statute as enacted in 1970,” the oil giant argued in a brief.
The Trump administration pushed back in court, arguing that the phrase “illnesses” was “unrestricted” and included mental conditions. “Exxon’s attempt to exclude mental illnesses from the OSH Act is inconsistent with the text and purpose of the Act,” wrote attorneys for the Labor Department.
It also accused Exxon of “downplaying” the fire for the provider from whom it sought a second opinion based on the worker’s file, as well as providing a “mischaracterization” of his response as “routine” work.
However, citing the Supreme Court’s 2024 Loper Bright ruling, the 5th Circuit agreed with Exxon that “illnesses” cover only “physical ailments,” not mental health issues.
OSHA’s mental health rule may have survived under Chevron deference, but with judges now directed to determine the best reading on a statute, the regulation must go, wrote Wilson.
Dictionaries from around the time the law was passed in 1970 did not include mental conditions in their definitions of illness, the court said.
Wilson also ruled that the recordkeeping and reporting requirements are part of a broader regime for the inspection of equipment and facilities. But “the enumerated objects of OSHA’s wide-ranging inspection power are categories of things that risk physical harm. This buttresses that a narrower, physical-rather-than-mental understanding of ‘illnesses’ reflects the best reading of” the law, Wilson wrote.
He was joined by Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, a George W. Bush appointee, and Judge Jerry Edwin Smith, a Reagan appointee.
Exxon and OSHA did not return requests for comment on the ruling Wednesday.
