Thomas v General Motors Holden Limited

General Motors Holden Limited applied for special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia from a decision of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia. The dispute concerned the interpretation of a regulation designed to protect workers from falling.

The primary legal issue before the High Court was the construction of the regulation, specifically whether a platform on which the applicant was standing constituted a "work place" or was "elevated" within the meaning of the regulation. The Full Court had been divided on this issue, with two judges providing reasons for their decisions.

The applicant argued that one of the judges in the Full Court, Justice Bollen, had adopted a curious construction of the word "elevated," suggesting that for a platform to be considered elevated, it would need to be suspended from the ceiling, rather than simply standing on the floor. This interpretation, it was contended, begged the question of whether the platform was indeed elevated. The applicant also noted that the primary judge had excluded the regulation's operation on the basis that the platform was not a workplace due to its transient use.