Browsing: WHS decisions (VIC) | Page 9

The High Court has rejected an employer's bid for special leave to challenge a ruling that it is not entitled to recover, from its insurer, any damages and compensation paid to an injured worker because of its safety record.

• Industry Standard for deadly EWPs amended in Vic; and
  
• Silica breaches attract penalty as new Code commences.

An employer has been fined heavily over a fatality caused by an unsafely modified machine, while a young worker has been charged and fined for failing to take reasonable care for the health and safety of his even younger colleague, by throwing a tool at him.

A company's system of work, which hinged on a "nod or glance", was "inherently flawed and unsafe" and caused an injury that resulted in permanent incapacity to an underground miner, a court has ruled in awarding the man nearly $2 million for the company's negligence.

A nurse who was initially charged with recklessly attending work when she had COVID-19 - an offence potentially attracting jail time - has been fined $25,000 for failing to take reasonable care for the health and safety of people at her high-risk workplace.

In an exhaustive analysis of the evolving area of employer vicarious liability, a superior court has found a company is not liable for the injury-causing actions of a security guard who drew his gun and pointed it at the head of a co-worker.

An employer has been deemed liable for the psychological injury sustained by a worker who was attacked, most likely by the partner of a "high risk" client, on her way to work. A judge found the employer failed to act on its knowledge of the immediate risk the partner posed to the worker.

• Road death attracts plant-supply charge and fine; and
  
• Exposure limit for coal dust halved under model WHS laws.

In a case examining the link between the conduct of a work "undertaking" and risks that arise in the "wider world", an appeals court has quashed an employer's workplace safety penalty relating to injuries sustained by an 88-year-old man.

A worker, who accused his employer of negligence, has been denied permission to pursue a second damages claim, after a judge found his second injury arose out of the same circumstances he relied on in his first, dismissed application.