When assessing breach of duty under s 305B(1) of the Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 (Qld), the relevant risk must be identified as the aggregation of all factors leading to injury, not merely one element such as the propensity of children to drop things. A risk may be foreseeable yet still be properly categorised as insignificant under s 305B(1)(b) having regard to the absence of prior incidents over a substantial period and the volume of persons exposed without incident. A plaintiff alleging an employer should have adopted a particular precautionary system must adduce evidence establishing both that the system was one a reasonable employer ought to have adopted and that it would have avoided the risk of injury.
The full text is available to signed-in members.