Browsing: WHS decisions (QLD) | Page 9

A worker had been awarded nearly $800,000 in damages, after claiming his employer's "just get it done" attitude and failure to send for more personnel to help move a heavy object caused his debilitating back injury.

A plan to allow workers in a hazardous industry to prove their COVID-19 vaccination status through a "green tick approach" would be too susceptible to human error and could have "catastrophic" WHS consequences, a commission has ruled. Meanwhile, Tasmania has applied its close contact exemptions to more sectors.

A PCBU has been convicted and fined $400,000, after an investigation into an amputation incident revealed a series of safety failings, including that an induction video did not show a task as it was performed in practice.

"Unreasonable" actions that an employer or a manager aims at an employee do not automatically constitute bullying within the meaning of industrial relations laws, a court has confirmed in rejecting a worker's renewed bid for stop-bullying orders.

A worker's action in throwing a heavy object at an unlicensed plant operator was not the sole cause of the machine striking and injuring the worker, an appeals court has ruled in ordering the machine's owner to pay him damages.

In upholding two WHS improvement notices, a commission has stressed that a PCBU cannot delegate its duties around workplace facilities to a subcontractor, and found that one of the PCBU's submissions was "unsupported by the laws of physics".

In a rare move, a magistrate has published her reasons for sentencing a PCBU - for failing to ensure borrowed equipment satisfied WHS requirements - to assist future prosecutions.

Three PCBUs and a director that failed to comply with basic height and machine operation requirements have been handed penalties totalling more than $300,000, after workers sustained life-changing injuries.

A company director, whose reckless WHS conduct involved a degree of planning and reflection, has been handed a six-month suspended jail sentence, while his business has been fined $500,000, in the second case on a work incident.

• Duty holders fined over amputation on custom-made plant; and
  
• Electrical warning issued after three WHS fines imposed.