SA wine bottler fined over scald injury

Wine bottling company Portavin SA recently pleaded guilty to one count of breaching section 19(1) of the Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare Act 1986 in failing to provide and maintain plant in a safe condition.

The SA Industrial Relations Court was told how, in 2007, a female employee was operating a machine which sterilised wine bottles at the company’s premises. After inadvertently turning off two taps out of sequence, the young woman disconnected a hot-water hose. As she did, a build-up of pressure within the hose sprayed out water at a temperature of 80 °C over her upper right side. She received hospital treatment for the resulting scalds, but has since recovered and remains with the employer, having since been promoted to a role of team leader.

SafeWork SA submitted to the court that the employer had failed to undertake any adequate hazard identification or risk assessment on the machine concerned and failed to keep the machine in safe condition by means of a non-return valve, which would have minimised or eliminated the risk of a back-flow of hot water.

In his published decision on penalty, Industrial Magistrate Michael Ardlie noted that some safety procedures and training and induction processes were in place: “(The employer’s) failure really comes down to the fact that it had not put in place engineering controls as were reasonably practicable to supplement the administrative procedures that were in existence.”

Magistrate Ardlie imposed a conviction and fined the company $18,750, after a 25% discount to acknowledge the defendant’s early guilty plea, cooperation, contrition and remedial action on safety systems since the incident.

SafeWork SA says the case is similar to many others it has prosecuted in the past, where safety systems that were in place were often not rigorous enough to prevent reasonably foreseeable incidents of harm.