Mechanic awarded $1.4 million

A Canberra engine repair business has been ordered by the court to pay an injured mechanic $1,399,341 in damages, because it didn’t provide a safe system of work for lifting heavy items.
Stephen Roberts suffered an injury to his back while he was employed as a mechanic by DRB Equipment Repairs.
He was helping two men to manually lift a 105-kilogram pressure cleaner into the side door of a delivery van outside the DRB workshop when the load became snagged on a step inside the vehicle, causing it to roll, on its wheels, backwards towards him.
Roberts took the weight of the load which triggered pain in the lower left hand side of his back and a ‘burning sensation’. He went home and was referred for physiotherapy.

After making a workers’ compensation claim Roberts returned to work, but despite multiple treatments over the next two years, this failed to eliminate his back pain.
Following a significant workplace injury to his toe, in 2010, his employment was terminated and Roberts sued DRB for damages for his chronic low-back pain, which, he argued, precludes him from working.