Lewis v Green Mountain Food Processing Pty Ltd

DISTRICT COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

Lewis v Green Mountain Food Processing Pty Ltd [2014] QDC 149

PARTIES:

TYRON ALEXANDER LEWIS
(plaintiff)

v

GREEN MOUNTAIN FOOD PROCESSING PTY LTD ABN 29 123 040 424
(defendant)

FILE NO/S:

2503/12

DIVISION:

Civil

PROCEEDING:

Trial

ORIGINATING COURT:

Brisbane

DELIVERED ON:

6 June 2014 (ex-tempore)

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 June 2014

JUDGE:

Reid DCJ

ORDER:

1.   Judgment for the defendant.

2.   The plaintiff pays the Defendant’s standard costs from the date of the compulsory conference of 1 May 2012 until the conclusion of the matter.

CATCHWORDS:

Personal injury – alleged spinal injury –credibility

Bell v Mastermyne Pty Ltd [2008] QSC 331 applied

Monger v Camwade [2011] QSC 97 considered

COUNSEL:

Mr A. Stobie for the plaintiff

Ms O. Perkiss for the defendant

SOLICITORS:

McNamara & Associates for the plaintiff

BT Lawyers for the defendant

1. In this matter the plaintiff claims damages for personal injuries suffered in the course of his employment with the defendant at the defendant's meat processing plant at Coominya near Gatton.  Both liability and quantum are in dispute.  Indeed, the defendant disputes that the plaintiff was even injured. 

1. The incident is said to have occurred on 27 April when the plaintiff was only 18 years old having been born on 16 February 1991.  The event said to give rise to the entitlement to damages pre‑dates the 2010 amendments to the Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation Act and so damages are to be assessed according to common law principles. 

1. The plaintiff was working in the boning room of the Coominya plant.  He had been employed with the defendant only for a short period prior to 27 April.  He says that on that day he was required to empty parcels of meat onto a dicing machine.  To do so he said he had to lift the meat from a table to the feed in-tray at the top of the dicing machine which was at about his shoulder height.  He said he was able to rest his chin on the lip of the feed in-tray.  The machine was designed for larger pieces of meat to be fed into the dicer by an operator who stood on a raised platform on the opposite side of the machine from the plaintiff.  When diced the cubes of meat were discharged closer to the bottom of the machine. 

1. The process is described in the report of Adam Dargusch, a consultant engineer with InterSafe who had been engaged by the plaintiff's solicitors to provide a report about the incident.  It is a somewhat curious feature of the case that he was not significantly cross‑examined in respect of the content of his report, and when giving the evidence the general manager of the defendant company, Mr Giddens, who was responsible for the implementation of the system of work, was not asked any questions about Mr Dargusch's opinion about alternative safe work practices. 

1. Mr Dargusch says that the plaintiff indicated to him that the machine being…