Browsing: WHS decisions (NSW) | Page 6

An employer has been deemed vicariously liable for the actions of a worker who negligently failed to safely reverse a forklift, causing a collision that injured one of his colleagues.

• SWA updates WHS consultation checklist; and
  
• Worker quashes inappropriate-banter fine with CCTV evidence.

A case involving a "chaotic" workplace visit and suspected safety contraventions has provided a first-of-its-kind examination of whether WHS laws allow entry permit holders to consult with workers in private.

A PCBU's feeble attempt to install edge protection after scaffolding was removed, at one of its sites, led to a worker sustaining traumatic fall injuries, and warranted a pre-discount fine of $320,000, a court has found.

A police officer psychologically injured from working on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been awarded more than $1.8 million in damages, in a case examining the obligations of employers to oversee their employee assistance programs.

A PCBU breached its WHS duties by failing to alert an industrial complex's owners corporation or strata manager to the dangers posed by a damaged gate, which ultimately fell and killed a worker, a court has found in convicting and fining the PCBU $375,000.

An employer has been cleared of WHS breaches relating to an incident where defective plant was left in service and caught fire, forcing workers to seek refuge and survive on stored air until they could be evacuated.

A PCBU has been convicted and fined $255,000 for exposing two "spotters" to the risk of serious injury or death, in a case highlighting that duty holders can be prosecuted and handed hefty fines where injuries have not occurred.

A PCBU with "significant" WHS systems has been fined $525,000 over a fatality, involving its failure to implement a specific documented system of work for a task a worker was performing when he was killed.

An employer charged with WHS breaches after a blast hurled rocks at workers inside an exclusion zone has escaped conviction, with a regulator failing to prove beyond reasonable doubt that appointing a supervisor with less than "optimal" experience was a breach of the employer's duty.