Government of Western Australia | A transport and logistics company has been fined $625,000 (and ordered to pay more than $8,000 in costs) over the serious injury of a worker in 2021.
Toll Transport Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to failing to provide and maintain a safe workplace and, by that failure, causing serious harm to the worker, and was fined in Perth Magistrates Court.
In January 2021, the injured worker was employed as a forklift driver at Toll Transport’s premises at Perth Airport. Having returned from work after a shoulder injury, he was on light duties.
The area in which he was working included loading docks and freight bays where freight was delivered and sorted before being loaded onto road trains and transported to mine sites.
Some freight bays were marked with a sticker on the concrete floor that corresponded with an identical sticker placed on the freight.
On the morning of the incident, the injured worker was tasked with changing the stickers on the floor of the freight bays.
He was bending over changing a sticker when he was struck from behind by a reversing forklift, one of the three forklifts operating in the area that morning.
He suffered serious injuries to both legs, including fractures and crush injuries and the degloving of part of one leg, and has required five surgeries since the incident.
