The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) bloodborne pathogens standard, 29 C.F.R. § 1910.1030, requires employers having employees with “occupational exposure to blood or other potentially infectious materials” to develop written exposure control plans designed to eliminate or minimize employee exposure.

“Occupational exposure” requires that it be “reasonably anticipated” that an employee will come into contact with “blood or other potentially infectious materials that may result from the performance of [the] employee’s duties.”

Because most employees’ duties do not require such contact, the standard has generally applied only to employees in the healthcare industry or to employees with first-aid responsibilities as an express job duty. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon for the Kentucky Occupational Safety and Health Program (Kentucky OSH) or OSHA to issue bloodborne pathogen citations any time first aid has been rendered and the requirements of the bloodborne pathogen standard have not been met. The Kentucky Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (KOSHRC) seems to have taken it one step further by implying in a recent decision, Commissioner v. Louisville Water Company, that all employers with eight or more employees must comply with the bloodborne pathogens standard.

Under Kentucky law, all employers with eight or more employees in Kentucky are required to train employees in first aid and make adequate first-aid supplies readily available....

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