Browsing: Workplace safety court and tribunal decisions | Page 8

A major supermarket did not breach its safety duty of care to a store manager, who allegedly suffered an overuse injury, by failing to prevent her from working "excessive" hours in the lead up to a major audit, a court has found.

The fine imposed on an employer that failed to fully implement a mandatory safety measure, because it ran out of the required materials, has been increased more than five-fold on appeal, with a judge stressing penalties must be significant enough to dissuade others from "cutting corners".

A coronial inquest into a young worker's death in a forklift crash has found his employer didn't have any written safety policies or enforce critical WHS rules, before appearing to defy WHS caselaw by concluding the business was not obligated to instruct the worker to wear his seatbelt or not perform unloading work on slopes.

A PCBU should have ensured the safety procedures in its paper systems were put into practice and checked and maintained, to prevent a worker being pinned between a wall and a crane load, a court has found.

A WHS regulator has been allowed to continue prosecuting an employer over two silicosis cases, including one causing a worker's death, after defeating claims it had been aware of the alleged offences for many years and laid the charges too late.

A company has been convicted and fined $1.3 million in Victoria's first finalised workplace manslaughter case. Its director was also charged with manslaughter, but pleaded guilty to a less serious offence.

A worker has lost her claim she was forced to resign by workplace bullying and being blocked from working exclusively from home to protect herself, with a commission finding her employer was accommodating and receptive to her concerns.

An employer has failed to prove it both tolerated and encouraged a worker's repeated safety complaints - which were an "ongoing source of frustration to management" - and they weren't the reason it summarily dismissed him after he shoved a colleague.

A company and its director have been fined $420,000, after the latter identified serious safety issues at a site but failed to act to prevent a worker's seven-metre fall. Another PCBU has already been fined $300,000 over the fall.

A crane operator who failed to maintain a line of sight with a pedestrian colleague has been fined over the man's death. A PCBU and a manager have been charged with the industrial manslaughter of the colleague.