A Serious violation is defined as:

• A. A direct violation that results in death
• B. A violation with substantial probability that death or serious harm could result, and the hazard should have been known by the employer.
• C. A near-miss with no injury
• D. A minor administrative error

Answer: (B)

A serious violation focuses on the potential harm and the employer’s awareness of the hazard, not on what actually happened. It’s defined by a substantial probability that death or serious harm could result if the hazard were realized, and by the employer knowing or should have known about that hazard. In other words, even without an injury occurring, a hazard that could reasonably cause serious harm—and that the employer failed to address or was expected to know about—meets the threshold for a serious violation. This distinguishes it from near-misses or minor administrative errors, which don’t involve a substantial risk of deadly or severely injurious outcomes, and it differs from circumstances where death has already occurred, which fall into different categories of enforcement.