Browsing: WHS decisions (QLD) | Page 28

An operating plant manager has been fined, in an appeals court, for failing to develop a compliant safety management plan (SMP), despite the court accepting his claim that his employer excluded him from the process.

An employer has been convicted and fined $90,000, plus more than $13,700 in costs, after 1760kg of sheet materials fell on a worker, leaving him a quadriplegic. Meanwhile, a site supervisor and a principal contractor have been fined after an apprentice fell four metres.

A worker has unsuccessfully argued, on appeal, that he had been too intoxicated to consent to alcohol testing at work, and being subjected to the humiliating process psychologically injured him.

Safety regulations for transporting mobile cranes are likely to be overhauled, with a coronial inquest into a double fatality making a series of recommendations to Safe Work Australia, WHS and road regulators and a crane manufacturer.

An employer did not breach its duty of care when it ordered a worker to drive a truck with a broken seat, resulting in him suffering a back injury, because the worker didn't report experiencing pain at the time, a superior court has found.

Employers have a duty of care to consider blocking workers from undertaking risks, even where a worker's professional judgement is that the risk is "worth running" and they have the necessary expertise, an appeals court has found in upholding a $1.5 damages award.

A worker has been granted special leave to appeal to the High Court against a ruling that her employer didn't have a duty to protect her psychological health from investigation letters blaming her for a violent altercation and threatening her employment.

• Officer and company fined $175k after fall;
  
• New safety regulator imminent with $25m promise; and
  
• Government launches national review of increasing road trauma rates.

An injured worker has been awarded nearly $1.7 million after a labour-hire employee negligently caused a collision, with a court finding the labour-hire company never transferred control of its employee to the site operator.

A major employer has been ordered to pay a worker $47,676 for dismissing him for failing to evacuate after an explosion, with a commission finding the evacuation procedures were neither clearly understood nor consistently applied.