Company and director fined after worker injured in roof fall
A company and its sole director have been fined $60,000 after a worker suffered serious injuries after a roof fall.
Falls from heights remain one of the most common injuries at work and remain particularly dangerous for electricians who often work on, or in, roofs.
The company and director pleaded guilty at Southport Magistrates Court to failing to comply with their primary health and safety duty and that failure exposed an individual to a risk of death or serious injury.
On 2 December 2019, the company was engaged to cover four skylights on a shed roof with metal sheeting. Before the work started, the company director gave a toolbox talk to the three workers he’d engaged to do the job and left the site.
The men began working on the roof without any measures in place to eliminate or minimise the risk of falling through the skylights. A polycarbonate sheet was used to cover skylights. When a worker stepped onto that sheet it broke and he fell 4.8 metres.
The court heard the company did not provide any fall prevention device or fall arrest system to minimise a real and foreseeable risk of workers sustaining serious injury.
The company was fined $50,000 and the director $10,000. No convictions were recorded.
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