A company director should have foreseen a life-threatening crush incident because he was seriously injured in a similar incident 20 years earlier, a court has found. It also stressed that the director had a positive obligation to familiarise himself with all relevant safety regulations.
An employer's duty to provide a safe system of work extends to maintaining and enforcing such a system, including where an alternative system creates a foreseeable risk of injury of any severity, an appeals court has found in upholding an injured worker's $1.4 million award.
A worker has been refused $750,000 in damages from a major employer that allegedly injured him by causing him to be involuntarily detained under mental health laws.
A superior court has rejected claims that a local council's $30,000 safety fine was manifestly inadequate, but the case should encourage employers to weed out rogue supervisors and ensure safety directives are followed.
> Crane operator breached duty to defy unsafe directions; > Govt pumps funds into ABCC and workplace mental health; > New WHS Regulations for diving work commencing in Tas; and > NSW employers reminded of upcoming RTW requirements.
A host employer has been ordered to pay a worker nearly $270,000 in damages for manual handling injuries he sustained after it switched his task to lifting 55kg objects, without training or supervision.
Western Australia recently adopted Australia's second highest maximum work safety fines, but a major employer has been fined just $65,000 over a preventable fatality, with the State's former, notoriously lenient penalty regime continuing to apply to offences committed prior to October this year.
> Unsafe employers and supervisor fined; > National risk standard and Vic safety regulations commence; and > New laws underpin ACT's workers' comp self-insurance licence.
A worker has been awarded nearly $2 million in damages, after a court found his employer negligently allowed a defective alarm to be left unattended in an office, resulting in him sustaining whiplash injuries when it was accidentally activated.
