Browsing: Workplace safety court and tribunal decisions | Page 194

In an important case considering the extent of employers' powers to require workers to undergo medical examinations, a full Federal Court has upheld BHP Coal Pty Ltd's dismissal of an employee for refusing to see a company doctor.

A double amputee has been granted supreme court permission to sue nine employers for damages, five years after he sustained his catastrophic injuries in what should have been an exclusion zone.

The NSW Court of Appeal has quashed a world-first ruling (and $5 million damages award) that a worker's post-traumatic stress disorder was a "bodily injury" and compensable under international law.

A Queensland council has been fined $170,000 for failing to implement a safe system for reversing plant, after a fatality, while a UK worker has been jailed for focusing on her mobile phone instead of a vulnerable client, who died.

The Fair Work Commission has found that it doesn't have the power to deal with a workplace drug dispute because the aggrieved worker hasn't made a "genuine attempt" to resolve the issue with his employer.

An employer has been found 40 per cent liable for a serious workplace injury, which was caused by a subcontracted excavator operator negligently using his mobile phone while operating the vehicle.

An employer that previously claimed it should have been charged under road rules - with low maximum fines - instead of OHS laws after a fatality, has unsuccessfully argued that its OHS charges are invalid in failing to outline the "necessity" of providing safety instructions to workers.

A worker who claimed breaking a tooth on an apple made him lose focus while driving a dump truck, and flatten a bund without realising it, was fairly sacked for not reporting the incident, the Fair Work Commission has ruled.

• "Alarming" statistics prompt $3.2m safety campaign;
  
• Deserted worker loses three fingers; and
  
• Anti-violence training for paramedics designed by hostage experts.

Employees don't have the right to disobey lawful instructions from supervisors or refuse to carry out their duties just because they think they are unreasonable, the Fair Work Commission has ruled in refusing a worker stop-bullying orders.