An upstream duty holder has been prosecuted and fined for providing plant with a manual that was missing safety instructions for inspection and cleaning tasks. Another duty holder has been fined for failing to provide a demarcated safety zone for delivery drivers, which led to a double amputation.
An employer has been fined $800,000 for WHS breaches, after a designated work site migrated onto a dangerous stretch of road and a worker was killed by a vehicle driven by a colleague.
An appeals court has quashed a ruling that the WHS prosecution of a major company was invalid because of the process used to delegate the applicable regulatory powers. Meanwhile, a play centre has been charged with multiple safety breaches after a child fell seven metres.
A worker who claimed repeated safety incidents and near misses caused his psychological injury has been denied compensation, with a judge finding a number of his concerns were "misplaced" and reasonable administrative actions taken by his employer were the predominant causes of his condition.
The full written reasons for Victoria's first workplace manslaughter conviction have outlined four key differences between the case and Australia's first industrial manslaughter prosecution in 2020. They also show the defendant's director should not have moved a forklift "another inch" until he was fully aware of the location of a pedestrian worker.
A court has found a PCBU guilty of WHS breaches after a worker was hit by a forklift, but ruled its failure to separate forklifts and pedestrians was not a failure directly linked to its director's due diligence duties.
A workplace supervisor has been sentenced for recklessly allowing a drug-affected truck driver to drive and kill four police officers, but cleared of allegations he would have known the driver was in an unfit state just by looking at him. He was originally charged with four counts of manslaughter.
A business partner has successfully applied to commit $380,000 to WHS initiatives to avoid being prosecuted over the death of a worker in an exclusion zone that wasn't physically marked.