Maintenance Pleas Ignored by Company in the Farming Industry

A worker at Agrigrain Pty Ltd will be paid damages after a machine had exploded in his face. The business ignored the worker’s requests for help in maintaining the equipment. The incidence occurred in January 2016, whereby the worker was changing a bearing of the grain auger and a cast iron pulley had shattered  and hit him in the face in the Coonable packing facility. Consequently, the worker fell off the ladder and landed on the ground. 
 
The worker sued Agrigrain for negligence and advised the Court that they were told to call their Operations Manager in Narromine, which is two hours away from Coonable. It was found that the Coonable site didn’t have a maintenance schedule, and the qualified staff who were located in Narromine had rarely come to visit the staff to perform these checks. This follows the worker’s past requests to their manager to hire a fitter for the Coonable site as he didn’t have the time or skills to fix the equipment. The manager in question agreed, however they said authorisation was required from senior management. 
 
It was deemed by Judge Russell that Agrigrain had failed to perform a risk assessment for auger maintenance and bearing replacement, as well as not investigating the cause of the continual bearing failures. As such, the Judge declared that the worker be awarded $521,134 in damages from the injuries sustained at Agrigrain.