OSHA Can’t Require Companies to Log Mental Illnesses, Fifth Circuit Rules
The Fifth Circuit ruled unanimously that OSHA cannot require employers to record work-related mental illnesses, vacating a citation against ExxonMobil after a refinery worker developed PTSD.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled on July 21 that OSHA cannot require businesses to document work-related mental illnesses, finding that the federal law mandating employers to log work-related deaths, injuries, and illnesses applies only to physical conditions. The decision vacates an OSHA rule that had been in place for decades, overturning a practice that treated mental health conditions as recordable workplace injuries alongside fractures, burns, and chemical exposures.
The case began after a 2021 fire at an ExxonMobil refinery left a worker with post-traumatic stress disorder. OSHA cited the company and issued a penalty for failing to record the PTSD on its injury logs, arguing that the condition was work-related and therefore subject to the same reporting requirements as any physical ailment. The Fifth Circuit disagreed, vacating the rule and setting aside the citation and penalty after finding that the agency had overstepped its statutory authority.
The court’s reasoning turned on the language of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which requires employers to “make, keep and preserve, and make available to the Secretary … such records regarding his activities relating to this chapter as the Secretary … may prescribe by regulation.” The panel held that the Act’s definition of “illness” — a term the statute ties to “physical harm” — does not extend to mental or emotional conditions, and that Congress never intended to give OSHA the power to compel the tracking of psychological injuries. The ruling was unanimous, leaving no ambiguity about the court’s interpretation.
For OSHA, the decision removes a tool it had used to track the scope of workplace mental health problems and to push employers toward prevention. The agency had treated mental illness recording as a natural extension of its injury-reporting mandate, particularly as awareness of conditions like PTSD grew around high-risk industries. The ExxonMobil case was one of the first tests of that authority in a federal appeals court, and the outcome suggests that any future attempt to bring mental health under OSHA’s recordkeeping umbrella would require new legislation.
The ruling does not address whether employers might still face liability for mental health injuries under other legal frameworks — workers’ compensation claims, for instance, or civil suits — but it draws a clear line around what OSHA can compel. By confining the agency’s reach to physical conditions, the Fifth Circuit has effectively frozen the regulatory status quo, leaving the question of whether workplace mental illness should be tracked to Congress rather than to administrative rulemaking.