A BUILDING supplier has been fined nearly half a million dollars for having insufficient safety systems in place after a worker was crushed to death by falling stone slabs.
The stone slabs were moved by workers using a crane at Avant Stone's warehouse on August 20, 2022, when an employee, Anton Bauer, was fatally injured.
The maximum penalty for the offence - of exposing a worker to a risk of death or serious injury under the Work Health and Safety Act - is a $1,860,843 fine.
There were reasonably practicable measures which Avant Stone could have taken to eliminate or minimise that risk, it was argued in the NSW District Court before Judge David Russell SC.
They included a racking system to prevent stone slabs from inadvertently falling, a supervisory/spotting system, and training in any of those or other adopted measures.
Avant Stone started out as a Sydney-based business in 2018 supplying imported natural stone slabs, including of marble and granite, to stonemasons and builders.
It opened a second warehouse in Beresfield in August, 2022, at which time it employed ten people, three in Beresfield, with an annual turnover of about $4 million.
Mr Bauer was employed as a 'warehouse all-rounder' at Beresfield, measuring slabs, moving and loading slabs and tiles, delivering and picking up stock, measuring, inspecting and assessing stock and helping to maintain a safe and clean warehouse and office area.
The warehouse was also used as a showroom to display stone slabs to prospective clients, with three rows of A-frame racks running from the front to the back of the room.
An overhead travelling crane with a 5-tonne capacity was used inside the showroom to move the slabs along a single girder with a 16.5 metre span, using a remote control.
Attached to the crane was a clamp with a safe lifting capacity of 1200 kilograms. The workers, including Mr Bauer, were required to attach the clamp onto a stone slab and operate the crane using the remote control.
During the morning of August 20, 2022, several clients attended the warehouse and were shown stone slabs, which Mr Bauer moved between the A-frames.
After the clients had left, about 11.20am, a worker found Mr Bauer lying on the floor, partially crushed under two stone slabs, each weighing about 315 kilograms each. An ambulance was called and attended but Mr Bauer was declared dead on the scene.
Avant Stone temporarily closed the warehouse after Mr Bauer's death and engaged an engineer to design a rack/restraint system to store and display the slabs, and the existing A-frames were modified to include vertical bars to prevent slabs from falling from the racks.
Safety documentation was also reviewed in consultation with the warehouse workers, and all staff participated in refresher training on safe operating procedures.
Avant Stone should have known of the risk of slabs falling, Justice Russell said. The risk was clearly present, with unrestrained stone slabs stored in A-frames, without any means of restraining them if they tipped over.
Justice Russell found the level of culpability of Avant Stone in the upper half of the mid range, and imposed a fine of $600,000, reduced by 25 per cent due to the company's early guilty plea.
