By Gaby Grammeno Contributor
The employer was a business that supplied natural stone slabs to stonemasons and builders. The slabs were displayed and moved by workers using a crane at the company’s warehouse, which also incorporated a showroom.
On 20 August 2022, only two employees were at work in the warehouse. While one of them attended to clients and showed them the slabs, the other was told to move slabs between the A-frames to help the clients select the slabs they might want.
After the clients left the warehouse, the worker who had been attending to them went to use the bathroom. When he returned, he found the other worker lying on the floor, partially crushed under two stone slabs, each of which weighed approximately 315kg.
He called an ambulance and emergency services arrived, but the worker could not be revived and was declared dead at the scene.
The company was charged with failing to comply with its duties under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011, and the case was heard in the District Court of New South Wales.
In court
The Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017 sets out employers’ duties to manage the health and safety risks of things falling on people, if the falling object is reasonably likely to injure the person (cl 54).
It stipulates that if the risk cannot be eliminated, it must be minimised by providing and maintaining a safe system of work which prevents an object from falling freely, or providing a system to arrest the fall, so far as is reasonably practicable.
The Regulation also provides that the person with management or control of a plant (such as a crane) at a workplace must ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, that loads are lifted or suspended in a way that ensures the load remains under control during the activity.
Guidance in fulfilling these obligations is available in the Safe Work Australia Code of Practice, Hazardous Manual Tasks (2018), Safe Work Australia’s Falling Objects Fact Sheet (2012), and Australian Standard 2550.1–2011 Cranes, hoists and winches – Safe use Part 1: General requirements.
Judge David Russell heard that the employer failed to take any of the reasonably practicable measures to eliminate or minimise the risk.
The stone slabs were stored on a 5-degree lean on A-frames. There was no documented system in place for lifting and moving the slabs, and no supervision or spotting system in place to ensure safe systems of work.
The employer could have provided an adequate racking system to prevent stone slabs from inadvertently falling, particularly when being moved.
It could have developed, implemented and maintained a documented job safety analysis and/or safe work method statement specific to lifting and moving slabs, enforced a supervisory/spotting system to ensure safe systems of work were followed, and provided training and instruction in these safe systems.
None of these measures were taken until after the accident. After the worker was killed, the company engaged an engineer to design a rack/restraint system to store and display the slabs, and the existing A-frames were then modified to include vertical bars to prevent slabs from falling from the racks. In addition, safety documentation was reviewed in consultation with the warehouse workers and all staff were given relevant training.
It total, the company spent about $450,000 improving safety equipment and procedures after the incident.
Judge Russell formed the view that though the business was ‘not a company which took safety lightly’, at the date of the incident it ‘did not have appropriate systems in place in the warehouse … to eliminate or minimise the risk of stone slabs tipping’.
The company should have known of the risk and its potentially serious consequences, and there would have been ‘little inconvenience in appropriate steps being implemented’.
The company pleaded guilty to the offence of failing to comply with its health and safety duty and exposing the worker to a risk of death or serious injury. The maximum penalty for the offence is a fine of $1,860,843.
In considering the appropriate sentence, Judge Russell noted that the company’s lack of previous convictions, its otherwise good character, the unlikelihood of its re-offending, its plea of guilty and the relatively small size of the company.
The court imposed a fine of $450,000 plus the prosecutor’s costs.
What it means for employers
Foreseeable risks of death or serious injury must be managed with effective safe work systems, training and documentation.
