On 12 March 2025, a freight lines company was sentenced in the Warwick Magistrates Court for breaching section 32 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld) (‘the Act’), having failed to comply with its primary health and safety duty. The legal basis for the complaint was that the defendant, as a person conducting a business, had a primary duty of care to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of its workers; and the defendant failed to comply with that duty; and the failure exposed an individual to a risk of death or serious injury.

The defendant operates a freight transportation company and utilise a warehouse for storage. The warehouse has docking bays where trucks and trailers park to be loaded and unloaded with the assistance of forklifts. The forklifts were operated in an area of the warehouse that pedestrians could access. The offending involved a failure by the defendant to eliminate or minimise the risk by:

• Painting and maintaining line markings in the warehouse clearly delineating between pedestrian access and forklift zones; and
• Providing supervision to ensure that
  • workers were not walking through areas of the warehouse that were not pedestrians zones; and
  • forklifts were not being operated in close proximity to workers.

The risk caused by that failure eventuated on 9 May 2022 when a worker was struck by a forklift which was being reversed from a docking bay. The worker sustained fractures to his lower leg and ankle and underwent surgery the following day, with three follow up surgeries required to remove dead tissue and receive a skin graft.

In sentencing, Her Honour Magistrate Crawford noted that it was serious offending and accepted that it involved a risk of death. In determining to fine the defendant $50,000, Her Honour noted that the steps to be taken to eliminate or minimise the risk were neither complex nor burdensome, and were fundamental and basic safety measures. Her Honour considered that the offending could not be categorised as momentary or isolated.

Her Honour acknowledged it was to the defendant’s credit that they had taken subsequent remedial action which ought to prevent similar incidents occurring again. She also had regard to the support offered to the local community by the defendant, who provided significant sponsorships and took their position in the community seriously, as well as their timely plea of guilty and ongoing employment of the injured worker who supported the defendant.

Her Honour took into account the defendant’s lack of prior offences, their standing in the community as a good corporate citizen, and that the prosecution did not press for a conviction in determining not to record a conviction. The defendant was ordered to pay costs.

OWHSP contact: enquiries@owhsp.qld.gov.au