A housing builder was fined $300,000 on 14 June 2016 in the County Court for a fatality that occurred on the builder’s Brighton construction site on 23 June 2014.

Bilic Homes recently pleaded guilty to breaches of the OHS Act 2004 for failing to provide a safe workplace. The incident involved the collapse of a brick wall onto contractor Michael Klanja as the result of high winds.

In addition to the fine it is likely that Bilic Homes’ legal costs will run into tens of thousands of dollars.

County Court Judge Jane Campton on Tuesday said it was “foreseeable” that the wall could have collapsed in the event of severe weather and cause serious injury or death.

“The risk was not confined to the deceased … anyone who came onto the site would have been exposed,” she said.

Judge Campto

n agreed that the risk could have been “easily eliminated” by simply bracing the wall to “prevent a tragedy like this”.

Master Builders makes a large variety of sample Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) available to the industry free of charge to assist builders and subcontractors with meeting their OHS duties.

WorkSafe obtained a sample SWMS for bricklaying to demonstrate that the builder was responsible for ensuring that the wall was properly braced.

Though it wasn’t necessarily the builder’s direct responsibility to brace the wall (it should have been braced by the bricklayers), as the person tasked with overall management and control of the site (i.e. as the Principal Contractor) the ultimate responsibility lay with him to ensure this precaution was taken.

SWMS must be produced whenever ‘High Risk Construction Work’ (HRCW) is performed. The definition of HRCW includes ‘any work that involves installation of temporary supports to prevent collapse of a structure’.

Construction of brick walls is an activity that meets the criteria of HRCW as outlined above. Housing builders must ensure they get SWMS from subcontractor brickies (and all subcontractors who perform HRCW) or potentially place themselves at risk of prosecution.

After the June 2014 incident, WorkSafe issued an alert to highlight the key safety considerations associated with the ‘Danger of freestanding masonry walls’.

This prosecution is a reminder to all builders that they need to make sure their subcontractors are working safely and producing appropriate SWMS everywhere they are needed.

It offers a bitter lesson to all builders to ensure that they make themselves aware of their legal obligations, including their obligations to manage subcontractors on their building sites.