Latest news with #PCBU
Scoop
10-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Worker's Fall Off Wet Roof Costs Employer $100k
Press Release – Industrial Safety News As winter creeps closer, WorkSafe is reminding businesses to take heed of the risks when operating at height after the sentencing of a Wellington business whose worker fell six metres. 38-year-old Josh Bowles had only been in his job for two months and had no experience or training in working at height when he fell from a slippery rooftop in central Wellington in April 2023. He spent six months in hospital recovering from a traumatic brain injury and multiple broken bones. The father of five still lives with continuous pain, and has been unable to work since the fall. A WorkSafe investigation found there was only limited edge protection to the roofline. In its absence, a harness system should have been used to keep workers safe but was not. Regardless, Bowles had no formal training on use of a harness or roof-anchors. His employer, Prowash, did not properly manage the risks of working in rainy conditions on a new iron roof with cleaning product on it. Prowash was unable to provide WorkSafe with any policies, or risk/hazard identification and control process, to prove it had a safe system of work in place. 'This was a preventable fall which has permanently impacted a young father's quality of life and job prospects,' says WorkSafe principal inspector, Paul Budd. 'Falls from height are a well-known risk and there is no excuse for not putting proper protections in place – especially in bad weather. If the work needs to be postponed until conditions are more favourable, then do so. 'The best controls are those that don't require active judgement by a worker. This includes solutions such as edge protection or scaffolding. If a worker slips or missteps, as we saw in this case, there is a physical barrier between themselves and the ground below,' says Budd. WorkSafe says businesses must manage their risks, and where they don't it will take action. Background Prowash Wellington Limited was sentenced at Wellington District Court on 15 April 2025 A fine of $40,000 was imposed, and reparations of $77,456 ordered Prowash was charged under sections 36(1)(a), 48(1) and (2)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 Being a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), having a duty to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers who work for the PCBU, including Joshua Bowles, while the workers are at work, namely while carrying out work on the roof of 258 Taranaki Street, Wellington, did fail to comply with that duty, and that failure exposed workers to a risk of death or serious injury from a fall from height. The maximum penalty is a fine not exceeding $1.5 million.
Scoop
10-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Worker's Fall Off Wet Roof Costs Employer $100k
Press Release – Industrial Safety News As winter creeps closer, WorkSafe is reminding businesses to take heed of the risks when operating at height after the sentencing of a Wellington business whose worker fell six metres. 38-year-old Josh Bowles had only been in his job for two months and had no experience or training in working at height when he fell from a slippery rooftop in central Wellington in April 2023. He spent six months in hospital recovering from a traumatic brain injury and multiple broken bones. The father of five still lives with continuous pain, and has been unable to work since the fall. A WorkSafe investigation found there was only limited edge protection to the roofline. In its absence, a harness system should have been used to keep workers safe but was not. Regardless, Bowles had no formal training on use of a harness or roof-anchors. His employer, Prowash, did not properly manage the risks of working in rainy conditions on a new iron roof with cleaning product on it. Prowash was unable to provide WorkSafe with any policies, or risk/hazard identification and control process, to prove it had a safe system of work in place. 'This was a preventable fall which has permanently impacted a young father's quality of life and job prospects,' says WorkSafe principal inspector, Paul Budd. 'Falls from height are a well-known risk and there is no excuse for not putting proper protections in place – especially in bad weather. If the work needs to be postponed until conditions are more favourable, then do so. 'The best controls are those that don't require active judgement by a worker. This includes solutions such as edge protection or scaffolding. If a worker slips or missteps, as we saw in this case, there is a physical barrier between themselves and the ground below,' says Budd. WorkSafe says businesses must manage their risks, and where they don't it will take action. Background Prowash Wellington Limited was sentenced at Wellington District Court on 15 April 2025 A fine of $40,000 was imposed, and reparations of $77,456 ordered Prowash was charged under sections 36(1)(a), 48(1) and (2)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 Being a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), having a duty to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers who work for the PCBU, including Joshua Bowles, while the workers are at work, namely while carrying out work on the roof of 258 Taranaki Street, Wellington, did fail to comply with that duty, and that failure exposed workers to a risk of death or serious injury from a fall from height. The maximum penalty is a fine not exceeding $1.5 million.
Scoop
10-05-2025
- Scoop
Worker's Fall Off Wet Roof Costs Employer $100k
38-year-old Josh Bowles had only been in his job for two months and had no experience or training in working at height when he fell from a slippery rooftop in central Wellington in April 2023. He spent six months in hospital recovering from a traumatic brain injury and multiple broken bones. The father of five still lives with continuous pain, and has been unable to work since the fall. A WorkSafe investigation found there was only limited edge protection to the roofline. In its absence, a harness system should have been used to keep workers safe but was not. Regardless, Bowles had no formal training on use of a harness or roof-anchors. His employer, Prowash, did not properly manage the risks of working in rainy conditions on a new iron roof with cleaning product on it. Prowash was unable to provide WorkSafe with any policies, or risk/hazard identification and control process, to prove it had a safe system of work in place. 'This was a preventable fall which has permanently impacted a young father's quality of life and job prospects,' says WorkSafe principal inspector, Paul Budd. 'Falls from height are a well-known risk and there is no excuse for not putting proper protections in place – especially in bad weather. If the work needs to be postponed until conditions are more favourable, then do so. 'The best controls are those that don't require active judgement by a worker. This includes solutions such as edge protection or scaffolding. If a worker slips or missteps, as we saw in this case, there is a physical barrier between themselves and the ground below,' says Budd. WorkSafe says businesses must manage their risks, and where they don't it will take action. Background Prowash Wellington Limited was sentenced at Wellington District Court on 15 April 2025 A fine of $40,000 was imposed, and reparations of $77,456 ordered Prowash was charged under sections 36(1)(a), 48(1) and (2)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 Being a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), having a duty to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers who work for the PCBU, including Joshua Bowles, while the workers are at work, namely while carrying out work on the roof of 258 Taranaki Street, Wellington, did fail to comply with that duty, and that failure exposed workers to a risk of death or serious injury from a fall from height. The maximum penalty is a fine not exceeding $1.5 million.
Scoop
05-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
High Court Decision: Safe Business Solutions Limited V WorkSafe New Zealand
In a recent High Court decision, Safe Business Solutions Limited v WorkSafe New Zealand [1], an appeal against a conviction relating to a breach of the primary duty of care was dismissed. The case is significant as the Court: essentially rejected the 'work product' / 'work activity' distinction that was referenced in the District Court's decision in NEMA v WorkSafe New Zealand (one of the prosecutions associated with the Whakaari | White Island tragedy) in terms of the circumstances in which the primary duty of care applied [2]; and emphasised the potentially broad application of the primary duty of care and the importance of the influence or control of the PCBU over the matters to which the risks to health and safety related as a mechanism for ensuring the application of that duty was not 'unduly wide'. Background Safe Business Solutions Limited (SBS) was engaged as an external health and safety consultant by two companies involved in agricultural and horticultural haulage to assist them with health and safety matters related to the shared premises they were moving into. In providing those services, SBS identified the need for the haulage companies to have in place a traffic flow plan for the new site. SBS agreed it would prepare the plan as an additional service. Before a traffic flow plan was put in place, and accident occurred at the site when a telescopic handler (a forklift/crane with a long boom) was driven into a worker causing significant injuries. WorkSafe charged one of the haulage companies and SBS with breaching the primary duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSW Act). The haulage company plead guilty. On the other hand, SBS applied to have the charge against it dismissed under the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, s 147 on the basis that the HSW Act did not impose a duty on it to ensure the health and safety of the haulage company's workers was not put at risk. The Court declined to dismiss the charge. SBS subsequently plead guilty and was convicted. SBS appealed its conviction arguing that its guilty plea was induced by an error of law (in terms of the ruling to not dismiss the charges) and that on the admitted facts, it could not have been convicted of the offence with which it was charged. The decision The first question Grau J had to consider was whether the HSW Act applied to health and safety consultants like SBS. SBS argued that because the HSW Act contains 'upstream' duties (eg the duty of a PCBU who supplies plant, substance, or structures), had Parliament intended that a health and safety consultancy would be subject to a duty under the Act, it would have created a specific duty for them. Her Honour found that the position of upstream PCBUs under the HSW Act was distinct from the position of a PCBU in SBS' position as SBS had a direct connection with the work of the PCBU that had engaged them. Grau J concluded that the scheme of the HSW Act indicated that the duties contained in the Act were intended to apply to a wide variety of relationships and actors in a workplace and that it would be contrary to those matters if the Act was to be interpreted in such a way that meant a health and safety consultancy was exempted from owing a duty under that legislation for work they did for another business. On that basis, Grau J concluded the HSW Act applied to SBS. Having established the HSW Act applied to SBS, Grau J then had to consider whether the Judge at first instance had erred in his interpretation of the duty in s 36(2) when declining to dismiss the charge against SBS. Her Honour found that in light of the purpose and scheme of the HSW Act, s 36 had a broad application and applied to SBS because: While s 36(2) was framed in relatively more negative terms than s 36(1), all of the duties under the HSW Act required PCBUs to take positive actions (eg take actions to eliminate or minimise the risks to health and safety). Accordingly, s 36(2) applied to SBS in relation to its failure to produce the traffic flow plan for the haulage companies. The Court noted that to find otherwise would enable a PCBU to escape liability from failing to do work it had agreed to do. Section 36(2) should not be interpreted in a way that merely extended the duty owed by a PCBU under s 36(1) to other people. The Court explained this would be an interpretation that meant SBS simply owed a duty to ensure its own workplace was safe for its workers/workers under its influence or direction which would be an interpretation that would lessen the protection of the HSW Act for other people might be affected by the work of a business. Here, the 'other people' were the workers at the haulage companies that would have benefitted from the implementation of a traffic flow plan. SBS also argued that the Judge at first instance made an error of law by conflating ss 30 and 36 to find that whether or not SBS owed a duty depended upon its 'influence and control'. Section 30 of the HSW Act requires a person who owes a duty under the Act to comply with that duty to the extent they have an ability to influence and control the matter to which the risks relate. The Court concluded that no error of law occured because the Judge applied the test in s 30 to the question of whether SBS breached the duty it owed rather than whether it owed the duty at all. The Court explained that while the HSW Act imposes 'very broad' duties, s 30 plays an important role to ensure their application 'is not unduly wide' by limiting the application of the duty to what is within the PCBU's influence and control. In this case, it meant that SBS was not required to physically stop traffic at the haulage companies' workplace as it had no ability to influence or control that matter. However, SBS did have an ability to influence or control the production of a traffic flow plan and could have taken steps to produce one. Our view The outcome in this case continues a recent trend of decisions in which the Courts have not applied the 'work product' / 'work activity' distinction from NEMA when interpreting the primary duty of care [3]. Had such a distinction been applied here, SBS would not have faced liability as the breach of the primary duty of care in this case related to SBS' 'work product' (eg the production of a traffic flow plan) rather than its 'work activity' (eg how it ensured the health and safety of its workers when they visited the site). We consider this outcome would be at odds with the broad purpose of the HSW Act and could lead to unfairness in terms of the application of the Act. For example, in this case, while SBS would not be liable in connection with its 'work product', the haulage company would be liable as the accident arose in connection with its 'work activity'. The Courts' rejection of the 'work product' / 'work activity' distinction means that the primary duty of care potentially has a very broad application. This highlights the important role that s 30 plays in avoiding overreach in the application of duties under the HSW Act (as highlighted by Grau J) and serves as a good reminder to PCBUs to understand their influence or control over a matter to understand the extent to which they are required to discharge the duties they owe. Footnotes: [1] Safe Business Solutions Limited v WorkSafe New Zealand [2025] NZHC 979. [2] WorkSafe New Zealand v National Emergency Management Agency [2022] NZDC 8020. [3] WorkSafe New Zealand v RDAgritech Limited [2024] NZDC 12446, WorkSafe New Zealand v S [2023] NZDC 13435, WorkSafe New Zealand v The National Science Technology Roadshow Trust Board [2024] NZDC 3258 and WorkSafe New Zealand v Te Roopu Taurima O Manukau Trust [2023] NZDC 4212.
Scoop
01-05-2025
- Scoop
Unsafe Quad Bike Killed Farmhand
A quad bike rollover which cost a Tararua farmhand his life could have been avoided if the farm manager had kept the bike in good working order, WorkSafe New Zealand says. Worn brakes, uneven tyre pressure, and poor suspension were among the defects found on the bike that flipped at low speed and killed 31-year-old Ethen Payne at an Eketāhuna dairy farm in November 2022. The bike was purchased second-hand and had no crush protection device installed. The farm manager and bike owner, Dane Hemphill, has now been sentenced for health and safety failures uncovered by a WorkSafe investigation. A victim impact statement read in court said Mr Payne's mother has since died of a broken heart. 'This tragedy should be the lightning rod the agriculture sector needs to up its game on quad bike safety,' says WorkSafe's central regional manager, Nigel Formosa. 'First and foremost, WorkSafe strongly recommends installing a crush protection device on the back of a quad bike.' Pre-start checks are important, primarily to check tyre pressure and brake function before setting off. Regular servicing in line with the manufacturer's recommendation is also a must. This may include oil changes and filter replacements. A checklist can be handy to document the frequency of servicing, what was looked at, and any fixes undertaken. Any issues identified during pre-start checks or servicing should be addressed promptly to avoid further problems or potential hazards. 'We know life is busy for farmers, but there's no excuse for letting your quad bike maintenance slide – especially when the consequences can be catastrophic. Ideally maintenance checks are done by a mechanic. If you are too busy to take your quad bikes in for a service, arrange for a mobile mechanic to come out to you. The cost is nothing compared to having a preventable death on your conscience,' says Nigel Formosa. Agriculture was New Zealand's deadliest industry in 2024, with 14 workers killed. Vehicles were the leading cause of death and injury on New Zealand farms, which is why WorkSafe's new strategy targets about a quarter of our future inspectorate activity towards agriculture. Businesses must manage their risks, and WorkSafe's role is to influence businesses to meet their responsibilities and keep people healthy and safe. When they do not, we will take action. Background: Dane Hemphill was sentenced at Wellington District Court on 30 April 2025. Reparations of $75,000 were ordered to be paid to the family. Dane Hemphill was charged under sections 36(1)(a), 48(1) and 48(2)(b) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 Being a PCBU, having a duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers who work for the PCBU, including Ethen Donald Payne, while the workers are at work in the business or undertaking, namely using a Honda TRX420FM2 quadbike at Spring Grove Dairies farm, did fail to comply with that duty and that failure exposed the workers to a risk of death or serious injury. The maximum penalty is a fine not exceeding $300,000.
