Logistics giant Linfox has been handed its second fine over $100,000 in six months, this time due to prosecution under federal occupational health and safety laws.
Linfox was fined $150,000 after a Federal Court found it guilty of a breach over a 2007 incident in which one of its forklift drivers was crushed after the vehicle overturned when its load hit stationary containers.
Linfox agreed to pay $10,000 to cover federal regulator Comcare’s investigation, which found that the width of the passage between the containers was inadequate and that its load was being transported at an unsafe height (about eight metres).
Along with other large multi-state operators, the company had after 2007 moved from the notoriously stringent Victorian jurisdiction to Comcare. Some private sector companies were permitted to operate under Comcare if they could prove they had comparable finances and injury prevention procedures in place to government entities.
In March this year Linfox was fined $170,000 under Victoria’s OHS laws in a Magistrates Court over a 2006 accident in which a worker was crushed in another forklift-related incident. Linfox was ordered to pay an additional $41,270 in costs to WorkSafe Victoria.
That hearing was allowed to take place in Victoria after the
High Court decided that states and territories could pursue companies alleged to have breached laws under the local jurisdiction prior to their transition to Comcare.