In the first WHS penalty handed down in the South Australian Employment Tribunal, an employer has been fined after a worker was struck by a forklift. Meanwhile, three Victorian employers have been fined a total of $110,000 after a spate of incidents, including one where a worker was struck by an object that fell 13 storeys.
In a "precedent-setting case", former asbestos producer James Hardie has been ordered to pay exemplary damages to a man with malignant mesothelioma, after a court found it put profits ahead of his safety when it sold him asbestos products it knew could kill.
Two employers have been fined for WHS breaches after a worker was killed by a 345kg pole and a company director was filmed walking along a crane boom. Meanwhile, a court has rejected a company owner's appeal against his lengthy manslaughter sentence.
Two of the first entities charged with reckless conduct under harmonised WHS laws have failed to overturn the charges, with a full court rejecting their claim that their duty to "other persons" was limited to the exact time of their alleged recklessness.
A major fast food chain has been convicted and fined $105,000 for WHS offences, after a 16-year old worker fell into a tank of hot oil left unattended by other inexperienced workers.
An industrial court has averted an avalanche of quashed convictions, in rejecting an employer's claim that all WHS prosecutions launched in South Australia in a three-year period were invalid.
A worker sacked for allegedly breaching the WHS Act by spitting on a colleague has been reinstated, after a commission identified significant omissions in the employer's investigation report.
An employer that was recently penalised for forcing a victim of domestic violence to resign has now been fined nearly $150,000 (including costs) for seven OHS breaches, including failing to provide clean drinking water. Meanwhile, a business owner has been fined for abusing a WHS inspector.
A company director's knowledge of a truck's dilapidated brakes before he took over the company was relevant to his culpability in an employee's death, a judge has ruled in re-sentencing him to up to 10 more years in jail.
