Browsing: WHS decisions (VIC)

In a case highlighting the pitfalls of safety systems susceptible to human error, an employer has been convicted and fined $125,000 over an incident resulting, in part, from a worker's inability to hear a radio message.

• False "white cards" breached workplace safety laws; and
  
• Workplace drug testing rules clarified in nationally agreed Bill.

An employer breached safety Regulations and its duty of care to a worker through its "failure to know" about the broken equipment she needed to use, but it has dodged a damages bill of nearly $700,000.

The High Court has agreed to consider the scope of employers' OHS duties to workers who resist measures aimed at protecting their psychological health, in a case involving a lawyer whose $435,000 award for post-traumatic stress disorder was quashed in November.

• Risk controls missing for plant-pedestrian interactions;
  
• New Workplace Safety portfolio established in Tas; and
  
• Workers' comp premium increases confirmed in NSW.

A regulator has failed to recover injury payments from a workplace occupier accused of negligently causing the injury, after one of the regulator's inspectors filed a report saying the allegedly unsafe area of the site was in "adequate condition".

Courts should not place an "absolute and unremitting" duty of care on employers to protect the mental health of their employees, a judge has warned in dismissing a psychologically injured worker's negligence claim.

An employer has been fined after a random safety inspection found a worker had been provided with the wrong type of respirator for a hazardous substance, and hadn't undergone health monitoring. Another company was recently fined for failing to comply with a monitoring-related improvement notice.

• Employer fined $100k after non-working riders injured;
  
• Regulators issue 84 notices under ongoing blitzes; and
  
• Employers must check surfaces for fragile spots.

A major public healthcare provider has been convicted and fined $340,000 for breaching workplace health and safety laws in failing to identify and control a suicide risk to a patient.