## Facts

- Chip Ward was the president of Concept Sciences, Inc., a facility that processed hydroxylamine, a highly hazardous chemical.
- OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM) standard applies to processes involving listed chemicals at or above threshold quantities in Appendix A.
- Appendix A listed hydroxylamine with a threshold quantity but did not state a minimum concentration, unlike certain other listed chemicals.
- The facility allegedly handled a hydroxylamine solution at approximately 86.5% concentration.
- A catastrophic explosion occurred during hydroxylamine handling at the facility.
- The United States brought criminal charges alleging Ward willfully violated OSHA’s PSM requirements based on OSHA’s interpretation that the process was covered despite the absence of a specified concentration for hydroxylamine.

## Issues

1. Whether 29 C.F.R. § 1910.119 and Appendix A gave clear notice that a process involving an 86.5% hydroxylamine solution was covered when Appendix A specified no minimum concentration for hydroxylamine.
2. Whether the government could sustain a criminal, “willful” OSHA violation using an agency interpretation that was not clearly expressed in the regulatory text or supported by regulatory history.

## Decision

- The court rejected the government’s effort to impose criminal liability based on OSHA’s asserted interpretation of PSM coverage for hydroxylamine mixtures.
- The court treated Appendix A’s omission of a hydroxylamine concentration as creating genuine ambiguity on whether mixtures were covered.
- Because the asserted coverage theory was not clearly disclosed by the regulation and was not resolved by regulatory history, it could not support a willful criminal prosecution.

## Legal Principles

- Criminal enforcement of regulations requires fair notice; ambiguous regulatory language cannot be used, after the fact, to expand criminal liability through agency interpretation.
- In criminal cases, interpretive deference to an agency cannot substitute for clear regulatory prohibitions where liberty is at stake.
- Where a regulation is genuinely ambiguous about coverage, courts resolve the ambiguity in the defendant’s favor (rule-of-lenity and fair-notice principles).
- A charge requiring “willfulness” presupposes that the defendant had, or should have had, clear notice that the regulation applied to the conduct at issue.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that OSHA’s PSM regulation did not clearly notify regulated parties that hydroxylamine mixtures at the concentration used were covered when Appendix A set no minimum concentration for hydroxylamine, and it therefore refused to sustain a willful criminal prosecution resting on an interpretive theory not grounded in clear regulatory text or history.


United States v. Ward, No. Crim. 00-681, 2001 WL 1160168 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 5, 2001)