Unsafe lifting in the absence of instruction is foreseeable: Court
It was foreseeable that a worker might try to move an unsafe quantity of meat in one movement in the absence of specific training and instruction on lifting, the Queensland Supreme Court has ruled in awarding him $885K in damages.
The worker, employed by Consolidated Meat Group, was injured on a day when the meatworks were under-staffed and there was a build up of meat at his station. He was instructed by a foreman to "put the meat on the [conveyor] belt" and endeavoured to do this in one movement, by reaching one arm around the pile and twisting to the left. He experienced a sharp pain in his upper back and chest and was able to continue working for only a short period before seeking medical attention.
The pile, at the time, was around 60 centimetres high and a similar width, and estimated to weigh as much as 110 kilograms.
The worker sought damages on the basis that the employer had been negligent, breached its common law duty and breached its statutory duty. He claimed he had been given no instructions about lifting and had signed documents stating he had completed a safety induction "because he was asked to do so".
The employer failed to provide an answer to the breach of statutory duty claim and Justice Keiran Cullinane found the worker was entitled to succeed on this basis alone.
In addition, he found it was "plainly foreseeable" that in the circumstances the worker would attempt to move the meat as he did.
"The [employer] ought to have had in place a system which would have prevented [the worker] being exposed to an unnecessary risk of injury in the way that he was... [O]ne simple way to have avoided the incident was to have instructed the plaintiff not to attempt to move the meat in one movement and to have either instructed [the worker] as to a safe way of moving the meat or to have provided assistance to him to do so."
Justice Cullinane rejected the employer's argument that the worker was guilty of contributory negligence in failing to move the meat in a number of movements.
"[The worker] in taking the steps that he did, did so to enable the [employer's] factory to resume its operation and was, on my view of things, doing what could have been expected of any employee in the situation he found himself in."