WILLIAMSPORT - Roughly 1,000 current and former oil and gas rig workers have again lost their bid to be paid for time spent changing in and out of required personal protection equipment.

U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew W. Brann, in a case that has languished in the courts for more than 11 years, ruled Friday the workers failed to prove their basic protection equipment transcends ordinary on-the-job risks.

Brann granted summary judgment to Precision Drilling Corp. and Precision Drilling Oilfield Services of Houston, Texas, as he had done in 2019.

However, in October 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found Brann erred in finding an expert opinion was required to identify safety risks at the well sites.

It affirmed Brann’s ruling that Precision was not a willful violator of the Fair Labor Standards Act but remanded the case to him to determine if the PPE is integral and indispensable to the workers principal activities.

Rodney Tyger and Shawn Wadsworth, both of Renovo, in 2010 filed the suit alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. About 1,000 others opted in as plaintiffs.

They claimed they should be paid for time spent before and after shifts putting on and taking off steel-toed boots, hard hats, safety glasses, fire retardant coveralls, gloves and earplugs.

The workers claimed the equipment is indispensable because they can encounter mechanical, fire, burn and exposure to drilling fluids and hazardous materials risks.

Brann said employees failed to provide evidence that the mechanical risks were persistent or severe enough to transcend ordinary risks and failed to offer evidence that showed the severity and frequency of fire and burn risks.

Although workers produced sufficient evidence they are exposed to drilling chemicals on a frequent basis, Brann said, they failed to show it endangered them.

The judge pointed out Precision Drilling requires its employees to don additional PPE when mixing drilling chemicals, a time when their exposure could be dangerous.

To find the employees’ basic PPE guards against workplace hazards that accompany their principal activities and transcends ordinary risks would be out of step with courts across the country, he wrote.

“The hazards that the employees have described are either ordinary, hypothetical or isolated,” Brann concluded. “And the protection that the employees’ steel-toed boots, hard hats, safety glasses, fire retardant coveralls, gloves and earplugs provide against them can at best be described as so-so.”

He noted he had spent significant time sifting through the case record that includes some 20-odd depositions and multiple years of discovery.

Parts of the case were settled or dismissed over the years.

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