A Victorian engineering company which had been fined a total of $375,000 after three employees were injured in separate incidents had its appeal dismissed by the Court of Appeal this week. The company had pleaded guilty to two charges of failing to provide or maintain plant and systems of work that were, so far as reasonably practicable, safe and without risks to health.
The first charge related to a period in which two employees suffered hand injuries in separate incidents while operating a lathe. The second charge related to a single incident on 18 March 2010, in which an employee suffered lacerations to his leg when it became trapped between the rotating table and frame of a router.

On the first charge, the County Court fined the company $300,000. On the second charge it fined the company $75,000. The company appealed the fines, claiming that they were manifestly excessive.
In 2003, the company had bought a CNC “Fat Boy” lathe in 2003 which had guard doors to prevent access to the high-speed moving parts of the machine when it was operating. An interlock switch prevented the machine from operating when the doors were open. However, sometime in or before 2004 the company had overridden the switch, allowing the machine to be used with the guard doors open. During a WorkSafe inspection in 2006, an inspector noticed the switch had been bypassed and issued an improvement notice ordering the doors be interlocked. The company complied with this request but, two months later, the interlock switch was again bypassed.
On 12 October, 2009, an employee was attempting to clear plastic shavings from the lathe when the tip of his finger was crushed. The injured worker had been trained to use the lathe with the guard doors open. On 19 August, 2010, another employee was injured when he put his hand near the machine’s rotating parts. His injuries included a broken thumb which needed surgery and kept him off work for seven weeks. The County Court also heard that on 18 March 2010, an employee was using a router to drill holes in a plastic product when the router’s moving table – designed to move the plastic under the router head for drilling or cutting – trapped his leg against the frame of the router. He could not reach the emergency stop button, which had to be activated by another employee. He was freed by emergency services and taken to hospital.
In dismissing Dotmar’s appeal on Wednesday, the Court of Appeal said it did not accept the company’s argument that the fines imposed should reflect the seriousness of the employees’ injuries.