Packers Sanitation Services, Inc., provides cleaning service to a poultry processing facility in Georgia. At the facility is a machine known as a quill puller, which is used to remove chickens’ tail feathers.

A Packers employee, when hosing down the quill puller, stepped too close to the machine. Its rotating augers caught the employee’s glove, pulled in his hand, and amputated a fingertip. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Packers for failing to appropriately guard the quill puller. Packers contested the citation, arguing that the injured employee had violated a workplace rule requiring each employee to stay at least two feet away from an active quill puller. An administrative law judge affirmed the violation.

Packers appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Did Packers violate the machine-guarding standard?