An employer charged with WHS breaches after a blast hurled rocks at workers inside an exclusion zone has escaped conviction, with a regulator failing to prove beyond reasonable doubt that appointing a supervisor with less than "optimal" experience was a breach of the employer's duty.
In an extremely rare development, a judge has found the WHS offences of a reckless PCBU and a "worker" deserved the highest available penalties, totalling $3.15 million. They were charged over the grisly death of a man who was dragged into a woodchipper, and whose disappearance went unnoticed because the PCBU's systems were "so haphazard".
Ambulance Tasmania's "dysfunctional" manager-to-staff ratio contributed to its "gross failure" to hold a paramedic to account for his erratic behaviour or support his welfare, immediately before his death, an inquest has found.
An employer has unsuccessfully argued it wasn't liable for a worker's PTSD from dealing with violent criminals and being bullied by managers, with a tribunal rejecting that he wilfully misrepresented as never having suffered from the condition.
In a long-running case, an engineering company has been convicted and fined $250,000 for failing to ensure two workers were actively supervised while they helped a crane perform decommissioning work at another company's site.
A company has failed to overturn a $2 million-plus damages ruling examining the "transfer of employment". It unsuccessfully contended it was not vicariously liable for a labour-hire worker's negligence that caused a crush injury to a fellow employee.
A PCBU that unsuccessfully battled against its "prolix" WHS charges been fined $425,000, in relation to an incident where a confined-space worker fell into perlite powder and died from suffocation.