Trench flaggers need fall protection even feet from the edge

The department cited the company for two serious safety violations: failing to provide a fall protection system, and failing to write a fall protection work plan. Each carried a $900 penalty, for $1,800 in total. 

Northwest Cascade pushed back. It argued the flagger stood too far from the trench to be at risk, that he counted as someone “directly involved with the excavation process” and was therefore exempt, and that fall protection would have been infeasible anyway. 

The superior court agreed the flagger was exempt and reversed the citations. But the Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, affirming the Board and reinstating both violations. 

On the distance question, the court turned to the regulation’s “affected area” – the zone around a trench equal to its depth, capped at 15 feet. Because the trench was 17 feet deep, that zone reached 15 feet from every edge. The flagger, at under eight feet, sat well inside it. The court noted the wide zone reflects the danger of a trench wall caving in. 

On the exemption, the court drew a firm line. “A flagger’s job is to control traffic around a trench,” it wrote, which made the worker’s role in the dig itself “indirect.” The exemption, it said, covers people working the excavation – not those steering cars around it.