Paradise Outdoor Building Company fined $250k after worker seriously injured

A Townsville-based advertising company fined $250,000 after one of its workers suffered serious injury from an electric shock south of Mackay has made a second attempt to overturn the decision.

An advertising company fined $250,000 after one of its workers suffered serious injury from an electric shock while on a job south of Mackay has had its second attempt to overturn the decision rejected.

David Nolan had been changing skins on an outdoor advertising sign at Balberra on July 12, 2016 when 33,000 volts surged through him after the aluminium sail tract he was using struck a nearby overhead powerline.

The sign had been within a three-metre exclusion zone to the powerline, which had been identified as a hazard during a routine risk assessment in March 2008, a court heard.

As a result Mr Nolan received multiple rib and spinal fractures, a punctured right lung and burns to both hands.

Townsville-based company Paradise Outdoor Building Company Pty Ltd has tried to appeal a guilty conviction after a worker suffered serious injuries from an electric shock on the job. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Townsville-based company Paradise Outdoor Building Company Pty Ltd was found guilty after a two-day hearing in Mackay Magistrates Court of breaching its electrical safety duty by exposing Mr Nolan to a risk of death or serious injury.

In June 2019 Acting Magistrate Ron Muirhead found “there were readily available and inexpensive ways of eliminating the risk by simply requesting Ergon to raise the power lines”.

The maximum penalty for a category two breach is $1.5 million – Paradise Outdoor Building Company Pty Ltd was fined $250,000 and a conviction was not recorded.

First the company tried to appeal the decision in the district court, but the move was rejected.

Then it took its fight to the supreme court arguing against the district court dismissal on four grounds that centred on whether it was proved beyond reasonable doubt the company had breached its electrical safety duty and exposed Mr Nolan to a risk of death or serious injury.

Supreme Court Justice Hugh Fraser in a recent court judgment said the company proceeded on its application knowing the overhead powerlines were a hazard, “did not take any significant step to ameliorate that hazard but required its workers, including Nolan, who had only limited training about the need not to be within three metres of power lines”.

Mr Nolan was required “to feed a three metre long conductive aluminium sail track vertically along a sleeve on a billboard, the top corner of which was 0.4 of a metre within the exclusion zone”, the judgment read.

The cost for Ergon Energy to raise the powerlines, which was done after the incident at the company’s expense, was between $4000 and $4500.

An Ergon electrical engineer also gave evidence her employer would have been open to turning off the power if “it was a dire situation and could not be quickly rectified … for someone’s safety”.

Justice Fraser found the magistrate did not err in his findings and any appeal against the district court decision should be rejected.

Originally published as Paradise Outdoor Building Company fined $250k after worker seriously injured