$400,000+ fine and costs to worker who experience sexualised and aggressive behaviour

A recent NSW district court decision (SafeWork NSW v Marist Youth Care Limited [2024] NSWDC 74) has imposed fines and costs totalling $440,000 after employees were subject to sexualised and aggressive behaviour in a community-based residential home program.

The court found that the employer failed to:

• develop anti-violence policies and procedures to prevent or minimise offending behaviour

• regularly risk assess workplace designs and environments that might contribute to violence and harassment (e.g. working alone at night, remote or isolated settings, clients homes rather than a designated workplace)

• respond to increasing incidents

• take into consideration higher risk clients with behavioural difficulties

• engage male only carers to oversee male high risk youths

Our take

This case should not be surprising. It is very much on point with the High Court decision in Kozarov (click here) which in summary held that where the work is known to be particularly risky, employers need to take additional steps to ensure they address those particular known risks.

Action Items

• identify your top 5, 10 or 20 risks within the organisation and prioritise addressing them according to risk profile

• work through your risk profile like an action list in all management meetings

• proactively focus on keeping ‘evidence’ of your WHS efforts.

Edge Legal

Relationships. Respect. Results