Legal Hold & Record Locking: Protect Safety Records During Litigation

# Legal Hold & Record Locking: Never Lose Critical Safety Evidence

When OSHA issues a citation, a lawsuit is filed, or an insurance claim is opened, your safety records become legal evidence. Deleting, modifying, or losing those records—even accidentally—can result in spoliation sanctions, adverse court rulings, and dramatically increased penalties.

HazComFast's Legal Hold system locks critical records the moment a legal event triggers, ensuring nothing is lost or altered.

What Is a Legal Hold?

A legal hold (also called a litigation hold) is a directive to preserve all documents and records that may be relevant to a legal proceeding. In construction safety, this includes:

SDS access logs

Training records and sign-in sheets

Near miss and incident reports

Inspection records and corrective actions

Equipment inspection histories

Permit records (hot work, confined space, excavation)

Chemical inventory changes

Read Proof confirmations and signatures

Why Paper Systems Fail Legal Holds

| Risk | Paper Records | HazComFast Legal Hold |

|------|--------------|----------------------|

| Accidental deletion | Files get thrown out during office cleanup | Locked records cannot be deleted by any user |

| Modification | Entries can be altered after the fact | Append-only audit logs prevent tampering |

| Loss | Water damage, fire, theft | Cloud + local backups with redundancy |

| Incomplete preservation | Hard to identify all relevant records | System-wide search identifies all related documents |

| Chain of custody | Difficult to prove authenticity | Timestamped, user-attributed, immutable logs |

How Legal Hold Works in HazComFast

1. Trigger the Hold

A safety manager or administrator activates a legal hold by specifying:

Scope — which jobsites, date ranges, chemicals, or workers are involved

Reason — OSHA citation, lawsuit, insurance claim, internal investigation

Custodian — who is responsible fo