Talley’s loses safety dispute
A Nelson-based seafood company has lost a legal dispute with WorkSafe in a case balancing worker safety and food safety.
Talley’s had appealed to the High Court over a district court judge’s decision in the dispute involving a WorkSafe improvement notice at its Motueka mussel processing plant.
The notice followed a Talley’s employee suffering serious injuries to his hand and arm while cleaning a conveyor at the plant in June last year. A WorkSafe inspector recommended that a guard should be fitted to the conveyor to prevent access to nip points while it was running.
The conveyor is submerged in a bath during its operation, but during daily cleaning it is elevated, exposing the nip points.
Talley’s argued that a guard would impede its ability to clean the conveyor, increasing the risk of the food-borne bacteria listeria, and it appealed the inspector’s decision.
In the High Court, Justice Robert Dobson upheld Judge Tony Zohrab’s finding that WorkSafe’s recommended measures were not unreasonable.
Zohrab had acknowledged that any form of guard on the conveyor increased the risk of listeria. But he found that Talley’s experts had overstated that increased risk of listeria, and the company ‘‘failed to engage in any meaningful assessment of guarding options which could achieve the dual purpose of protecting both their workers and also the consumers of their mussels’’.
After losing the district court appeal, Talley’s installed a fixed guard which did not incorporate ‘‘material features’’ suggested by a WorkSafe expert.
Justice Dobson said both parties had taken different interpretations from the improvement notice.
The judge said the dialogue WorkSafe was keen to have with Talley’s personnel included suggestions for alternative types of guards, including those that could be removed during cleaning as long as the conveyor was turned off.
Justice Dobson said a report obtained by WorkSafe from Graham Fletcher of the NZ Institute for Plant and Food Research on the issue was to the effect that the risk of listeria was manageable.
‘‘The increased risk of of listeria contamination from the addition of guards of the types proposed by (WorkSafe) is insufficient to outweigh the improvement in employee safety that would be hereby achieved.’’
Justice Dobson dismissed Talley’s appeal.