Browsing: Fatalities | Page 3

A PCBU has lost its last-resort bid to block its WHS prosecution over the drowning deaths of a father and son, with a superior court describing its latest jurisdictional challenge as an "unacceptable fragmentation of the criminal proceeding".

An appeals court has upheld the acquittals of two PCBUs charged over the hypothermia death of a helicopter pilot, confirming that the "cascading" series of WHS measures they allegedly failed to adopt were not reasonably practicable.

The final PCBU to be sentenced in relation to the December 2019 Whakaari volcanic eruption, which killed 22 tourists and workers, failed to relay critical risk information, which only it possessed, to its contractors, a court has found.

Five of the 13 entities charged over the New Zealand volcanic eruption that killed 22 tourists and workers in 2019 have been ordered to pay a total of $13 million in workplace safety fines and reparations, in a case providing a "catastrophic example" of what can happen when safety duties are ignored.

A PCBU has been fined over a fatality that was caused, in part, by the inadvertent activation of a body-worn remote control for a machine.

A business partner has successfully applied to commit $380,000 to WHS initiatives to avoid being prosecuted over the death of a worker in an exclusion zone that wasn't physically marked.

• Police enter WHS undertaking after speed-trap death;
  
• Judges sought for restored WHS jurisdiction; and
  
• PCBUs reminded of WHS duties around domestic violence.

Employers must apply the hierarchy of controls to the hazards associated with height work, which starts with not performing any such work where reasonably practicable, a regulator has advised in launching a major blitz.

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.

The WHS offence of industrial manslaughter could include tougher penalties and capture more types of duty holders in NSW than under the national model laws, with the State Government calling for feedback on these matters.