Midfield Meat International fined over second workplace injury involving forklift

A worker placing cardboard sheets against a wall was hit by a reversing forklift at the McMeekin Road site in Warrnambool shortly before 3pm on March 20, 2019.

The victim's legs were crushed between the back of the forklift and a steel barrier attached to the wall.

He required hospitalisation and suffered nerve damage to his lower legs.

Midfield Meat International pleaded guilty in Warrnambool Magistrates Court on Thursday.

The court heard CCTV footage from the day revealed staff, which included employees from three different labouring companies, were not adhering to existing traffic management plans.

The incident occurred less than two weeks after the company was fined $95,000 after an employee sustained fractured ribs in an incident with a forklift.

On that day a worker was driving a forklift carrying a bin filled with skins along the thoroughfare towards a truck that was being loaded.

The driver's view was obscured by the bin as he drove forward and he was only alerted to the incident when someone yelled out.

After stopping he found he had hit two people, injuring the employee, who sustained two fractured ribs, and a company director who did not sustain a serious injury.

On Thursday barrister Stephen Russell said Midfield's management notified WorkSafe immediately after the more recent incident and an inspector attended within half an hour.

He said management was open and cooperative with WorkSafe, the forklift driver was immediately taken off forklift duties and the victim, upon his return to work, underwent a refresher OH&S course.

Mr Russell said that at the time of the offending, everyone at the work site was trained in a revised traffic management plan.

He said he was conscious not to blame the workers as Midfield had pleaded guilty and accepted responsibility for the offending.

But he said all pieces of equipment were covered by safe operating procedures and there was "an absolute direction to make sure that there were no breaches of traffic management plans again" following the earlier incident.

A prosecutor said further measures could have been taken in order to reduce the risk of injury.

He said the plan was "not good enough" and clearly had deficits, including a lack of physical separation between machines and pedestrians.

Magistrate John Lesser said he believed the incident was "an accident waiting to happen".

"Where you have an overlap between equipment, such as forklift drivers together with pedestrian workers working in a similar area, it's fundamental that every effort has to be made to keep them apart by methods that are reasonable, appropriate and practical," he said.

The magistrate accepted additional safety measures were now in place, however said that if those procedures were properly enforced at the time of the offending, the incident would not have occurred.

Mr Lesser said he "absolutely accepted" that Midfield took their OH&S obligations seriously and that while the company had been before the court on four previous occasions, it was a notably dangerous industry.

"(Midfield) is a good corporate citizen in general, operating in an environment where the likelihood of industrial accidents is regrettably always there," he said.

"I don't for one moment think they shirk that responsibility."

In sentencing, the magistrate said the offending, which included the likelihood of potentially worse injuries, was serious, and although the company had reoffended shortly after its last court appearance, the level of financial penalty was "not a ladder that you keep climbing".

Midfield was fined $90,000 and ordered to pay $2000 costs to WorkSafe.

A conviction was recorded.

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