Under Federal law, all individuals are presumed legally competent until a judicial hearing determines otherwise. Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), however, the competency criteria of a designated employee must first be evaluated by his/her employer. Outside the legal forum, competency is often used to assess one’s ability to understand and/or perform certain acts in a logical manner. One individual’s assessment of another’s competence is commonly understood as the identification of someone’s ability to make ethical decisions based on a variety of environmental, social and physical conditions. That’s not necessarily easy to do.
OSHA first introduced the definition of a Competent Person (CP) in 1989. Before then, it was the sole responsibility of the employer to verify implementation of safe work practices on the job. If the employer could not feasibly be on every worksite at all times where his employees were exposed to existing and potential hazards, they were less likely to be cited by an OSHA compliance officer. Today, more than a dozen OSHA standards identify the employee who is designated as CP has become a non-liable, yet functional extension of the employer on site. If the CP-employee performs incompetently, OSHA will never issue him/her a citation, but rather his/her employer for not verifying competency. According to 29 CFR, §1926.20[b][2] General Safety and Health Provisions, he/she is responsible to “provide for frequent and regular inspections of the jobsite, materials and equipment.” In order to ensure compliance with the employer’s Accident Protection Program, OSHA’s 1990 CPL 02-00-087(H)(4)(c) Inspection Procedures for Enforcing the Excavation Standard, states: