The first non-pecuniary penalty orders made under NSW's mirror WHS Act show that WorkCover and the courts are "receptive" to applications for such orders in certain circumstances, according to a lawyer.
A NSW employer that was acquitted of one OHS breach, but convicted of failing to "re-risk assess" an amended process that killed a worker and severely injured four others, has been fined $200,000.
An employer that failed to instruct a worker not to stand on scaffolding rails, even if it was "obvious" to workers not to do so, has been ordered to pay him $725,000 in damages, after he fractured his spine in a five-metre fall.
A NSW employer has been fined $300,000 over the death of a young student, while another employer has entered into a $427,000 enforceable undertaking under the State's new WHS Act.
The NSW District Court has been taking as "stern" a view of safety breaches as the IRC did before it, but there appears to be a trend towards defending charges to test the Court's interpretation of the OHS and WHS Acts, according to Henry Davis York lawyers.
A trial judge "set a standard of care well above that which was reasonable" when he ordered an employer to pay $650,000 in damages to a man who was hit by a train while intoxicated, the NSW Court of Appeal has found in quashing the decision.
A NSW bus driver's claims that her authority to drive shouldn't have been suspended for failing a drug test - because her drug use was a one-off incident - has been rejected.
Husband and wife breached WHS Act after buying chemicals online; WA employer fined in first asbestos-identification prosecution; Bystanders dominate work-related road death toll; and Union predicts high truck-related fatality rate for 2014.
A contractor has been ordered to pay $1 million in damages to a worker injured in an eight-metre scaffolding fall, after the NSW Court of Appeal found it took control of the worker's system of work, and revised the SWMS, just days before the incident.
