Smith v Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd t/as Coles Distribution Centre; Ready Workforce

Catchwords

[1965] HCA 61 Avopiling Pty Ltd v BosevskiAvopiling Pty Ltd v The Workers Compensation Nominal Insurer [2018] NSWCA 146 Banque Commerciale SA (en liqn) v Akhil Holdings Ltd (1990) 169 CLR 279[1979] HCA 37 Commonwealth v Amann Aviation Pty Ltd (1991) 174 CLR 64[1991] HCA 54 Coopers Payen Ltd v Southampton Container Terminal Ltd [2004] 1 Lloyd's Rep 331[2003] EWCA Civ 1223 Crampton v The Queen (2000) 206 CLR 161[2000] HCA 60 Czatyrko v Edith Cowan University [2005] HCA 1479 ALJR 839 Dare v Pulham (1982) 148 CLR 658[1982] HCA 70 Deal v Father Pius Kodakkathanath (2016) 258 CLR 281[2016] HCA 31 Duyvelshaff v Cathcart & Ritchie Ltd (1973) 47 ALJR 410 Fairall v Hobbs [2017] NSWCA 82347 ALR 151 Fuller-Lyons v New South Wales [2015] HCA 31[2003] HCA 34 Keith v Gal [2016] NSWCA 152 March v Stramare (E & M H) Pty Ltd (1991) 171 CLR 506[1991] HCA 12 McLean v Tedman (1984) 155 CLR 306[1984] HCA 60 Medlin v State Government Insurance Commission (1995) 182 CLR 1[1995] HCA 5 Monarch Steamship Co Ltd v Karlshamns Oljefabriker (A/B) [1949] AC 196 Nudd v The Queen [2006] HCA 9

Judgment (79 paragraphs)

[1]

surance v Milton [2016] NSWCA 156 Joslyn v Berryman (2003) 214 CLR 552; [2003] HCA 34 Keith v Gal [2016] NSWCA 152 March v Stramare (E & M H) Pty Ltd (1991) 171 CLR 506; [1991] HCA 12 McLean v Tedman (1984) 155 CLR 306; [1984] HCA 60 Medlin v State Government Insurance Commission (1995) 182 CLR 1; [1995] HCA 5 Monarch Steamship Co Ltd v Karlshamns Oljefabriker (A/B) [1949] AC 196 Nudd v The Queen [2006] HCA 9; (2006) 225 ALR 161 O'Connor v Commissioner for Government Transport (1954) 100 CLR 225; [1954] HCA 11 Paric v John Holland (Constructions) Pty Ltd [1985] HCA 58; 59 ALJR 844 Placer (Granny Smith) Pty Ltd v Thiess Contractors Pty Ltd [2003] HCA 10; (2003) 77 ALJR 768 R v Associated Northern Collieries (1910) 11 CLR 738; [1910] HCA 61 R v Birks (1990) 19 NSWLR 677 R v Hall (1988) 36 A Crim R 368 R v Klamo (2008) 18 VR 644; [2008] VSCA 75 Robinson v Harman (1848) 1 Exch 850; 154 ER 363 Saffron v Societe Miniere Cafrika (1958) 100 CLR 231; [1958] HCA 50 Tame v State of New South Wales; Annetts v Australian Stations Pty Ltd (2002) 211 CLR 317; [2002] HCA 35 Transpacific Industrial Solutions Pty Ltd v Phelps [2013] NSWCA 31 Urban Transport Authority of New South Wales v Nweiser (1992) 28 NSWLR 471 Wyong Shire Council v Shirt (1980) 146 CLR 40; [1980] HCA 12 Texts Cited: J Edelman, McGregor on Damages (20th ed, Sweet & Maxwell, 2018) Glass, McHugh and Douglas, The Liability of Employers in Damages for Personal Injury (2nd ed, 1979, Law Book Co.) Review of the Law of Negligence: Final Report (Commonwealth of Australia, August 2002) Category: Principal judgment Parties: Matthew Smith (Appellant in 2019/298538) Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd (Appellant in 2020/55981 and 2020/55990; respondent in 2019/297428 and 2019/298538) Ready Workforce (A Division of Chandler Macleod) Pty Ltd (Appellant in 2019/297428) Chandler Macleod Group Ltd (Respondent in 2020/55981 and 2020/55990) Representation: Counsel: M Cranitch SC, R Wathukarage, S Blount (Matthew Smith) G Parker SC (Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd) J Catsanos SC (Ready Workforce (A Division of Chandler Macleod) Pty Ltd) A Cheshire SC (Chandler Macleod Group Ltd)

[2]

Solicitors: Law Partners Personal Injury Lawyers (Matthew Smith) Holman Webb Lawyers (Ready Workforce (A Division of Chandler Macleod) Pty Ltd) McCulloch & Buggy Lawyers (Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd) Colin Biggers & Paisley (Chandler Macleod Group Ltd) File Number(s): 2019/297428; 2019/298538; 2020/55981; 2020/55990 Publication restriction: Nil Decision under appeal Court or tribunal: District Court Jurisdiction: Civil Date of Decision: 28 August 2019 Before: Gibb DCJ File Number(s): 2017/116745

[3]

[Note: The Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 provide (Rule 36.11) that unless the Court otherwise orders, a judgment or order is taken to be entered when it is recorded in the Court's computerised court record system. Setting aside and variation of judgments or orders is dealt with by Rules 36.15, 36.16, 36.17 and 36.18. Parties should in particular note the time limit of fourteen days in Rule 36.16.]

[4]

HEADNOTE [This headnote is not to be read as part of the judgment] The appellant in the first matter, Matthew Smith, had sued based on an injury to his back by lifting a carton whilst working at a warehouse operated by Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd. Mr Smith was employed by the appellant in the second matter, Ready Workforce (A Division of Chandler Macleod) Pty Ltd. Ready Workforce paid workers compensation for Mr Smith's back injury. Mr Smith sued Coles in negligence. Ready Workforce sued Coles pursuant to s 151Z of the Workers Compensation Act 1987 (NSW). Coles cross-claimed against Chandler Macleod Group Pty Ltd arguing that any liability it incurred was the subject of a contractual indemnity, or else was recoverable as damages for breach of contract. The proceedings were heard together in the District Court. During the trial, evidence was given for the first time that Coles had not provided Mr Smith with a 'pick stick', an implement which could be used to drag objects closer to a worker. The primary judge ordered judgment for Coles on Mr Smith and Ready Workforce's claims. The primary judge found that Coles had not been negligent because the injury had been caused as a result of Mr Smith's own failure to adopt the proper lifting technique, and that whether Mr Smith had access to a pick stick was irrelevant. The primary judge also ordered judgment on the cross-claim in favour of Coles and awarded nominal damages of $100. On appeal, Mr Smith and Ready Workforce challenged the primary judge's finding that Coles had not been negligent. Both appellants argued that the primary judge had not considered whether Coles had failed to provide a system of work that would avoid the risk that a worker would lift cartons improperly in circumstances where the carton could not easily be accessed. The appellants particularly relied on the absence of pick sticks being provided to workers at the warehouse as amounting to breach. Additionally, Coles appealed from the assessment of nominal damages on its cross-claim, claiming that it was entitled to damages for the irrecoverable costs it incurred in defending each action. The primary issues in the appeal were: (i) whether the pleadings and particulars of negligence permitted the plaintiffs in the Court below to rely on the absence of pick sticks as amounting to breach of a duty of care; (ii) whether the absence of pick sticks amounted to a breach of duty such that the plaintiff had established its claim of negligence; (iii) whether Coles was entitled to damages for the costs it had incurred in defending the proceedings. The Court of Appeal, by majority (Leeming JA and Emmett AJA), dismissed the appeals brought by Mr Smith and Ready Workforce. The Court unanimously dismissed the appeal brought by Coles. As to issue (i): Per Leeming JA (Emmett AJA agreeing at [224]):

[5]

Judgment

LEEMING JA: A single judgment determining two actions has led to three appeals involving four parties.
Two of the appeals are closely related. Mr Matthew Smith and Ready Workforce (A Division of Chandler Macleod) Pty Ltd separately sued Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd, the occupier of a 65,000m2 distribution centre at Smeaton Grange in western Sydney where Mr Smith worked. Mr Smith claimed that he was injured on 10 May 2014 while lifting a box of water bottles, located at the rear of a pallet resting on the floor. By the time proceedings were commenced, he had been paid slightly more than $100,000 in workers compensation. Mr Smith sued in negligence. His employer, Ready Workforce, sued pursuant to s 151Z of the Workers Compensation Act 1987 (NSW) to recover the workers compensation payments it had made. Both actions were heard together, and the primary judge dismissed both.
Ready Workforce's claim turned on establishing that Coles breached a duty of care owed to Mr Smith. Ready Workforce called no witnesses, and relied on the evidence adduced in Mr Smith's case (the evidence of all witnesses, lay and expert, was treated as evidence in each proceeding). The fact that on most issues there were two counsel appearing in Mr Smith's interest, and contrary to Coles' interest, has some significance for some of the grounds of appeal, especially a complaint about re-examination. However, the most convenient course for the purposes of these reasons will be to focus attention on Mr Smith's claim, and then return to that of Ready Workforce, noting that Mr Catsanos SC appeared at first instance and in this Court for Ready Workforce, Mr Parker SC for Coles, and while Mr Flett appeared at trial for Mr Smith, he was replaced by Mr Cranitch SC in this Court.
There are 29 grounds of appeal, not counting sub-grounds, separately raised by Mr Smith and Ready Workforce, some of which turn upon the pleadings and the conduct of the trial. The drafters of both notices might profit from reviewing McHugh J's observation in Tame v State of New South Wales; Annetts v Australian Stations Pty Ltd (2002) 211 CLR 317; [2002] HCA 35 at [70] that "[i]t is inherently unlikely that any personal-injuries action would give rise to fourteen issues ..." as well as his citation of a United States Circuit judge's statement that where "an appellant's brief contain[s] seven to ten points or more, a presumption arises that there is no merit to any of them". It is unlikely that there will be 29 reasonably arguable errors in a judgment, each independently causing the wrong order to be made.

[6]

Mr Smith's action for negligence

It is common ground that Coles owed Mr Smith a duty as a "host employer" which extended to taking reasonable care to avoid exposing him to unnecessary risks. None of the potential complexities considered in Bostik Australia Pty Ltd v Liddiard [2009] NSWCA 167 at [141]-[149] was explored and may therefore be passed over. It was not disputed that while Mr Smith's duties did not amount to repetitive work in the sense of an operator on an assembly line, Coles also had to take into account the possibilities of thoughtlessness, inadvertence and carelessness, substantially in accordance with what was held in Czatyrko v Edith Cowan University [2005] HCA 14; 79 ALJR 839 at [12].
However, Coles was not Mr Smith's employer. This had profound consequences. Mr Smith's claim for damages was not a claim for "modified common law damages" pursuant to Division 3 of Part 5 of the Workers Compensation Act 1987 (NSW). That meant that many of the restrictions of that Division were not applicable (see for example ss 151H-151M). It also meant that the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW) was not displaced by s 3B(1)(f), and thus Mr Smith's claim for personal injury damages was governed by Part 2 of that Act. Most importantly for present purposes, Part 1A applied. Thus Mr Smith had to satisfy ss 5B and 5C in order to establish a breach of duty, and ss 5D and 5E to establish causation. Although there can be a tendency to equate the tests for breach and causation at common law with the requirements of ss 5B-5E of the Civil Liability Act, they are distinct. Breach at common law reflects the formulation in Wyong Shire Council v Shirt (1980) 146 CLR 40; [1980] HCA 12; sections 5B and 5C modify the position including, most relevantly for this appeal, by insisting in all cases where the breach of duty arises because of a failure to take a precaution against a risk of harm that the plaintiff show that a reasonable person in the defendant's position would have taken that precaution. Causation at common law continues to be governed by March v Stramare (E & M H) Pty Ltd (1991) 171 CLR 506; [1991] HCA 12, while the requirements of factual causation and scope of liability in s 5D more closely reflect McHugh J's minority approach in that appeal.

[7]

Mr Smith's pleaded claim

Mr Smith's statement of claim did not mention the Civil Liability Act. Nor did it mention the legal concepts which were indispensable to his obtaining judgment, namely, risk of harm, precautions which a reasonable person in Coles' position would have put in place, and factual causation.
Not only was there disconformity between the pleading and the legal issues, but also the facts pleaded were quite distant from the case advanced at trial.
The facts giving rise to the incident were pleaded thus: "On 10 May 2014 the Plaintiff was working at the Workplace. On the said day the Plaintiff commenced work at about 5am, and spent the first approximately 3 hours of his shift lifting heavy boxes of drinks. At or about 9am, was required to lean forward to reach the back of a pallet, and manually lift a heavy box containing approximately 25 x 1 Litre glass bottles of water, during the lifting of which the Plaintiff suffered severe personal injury."
It is not clear how much a box of 25 x 1 litre glass bottles of water would weigh, although it must be considerably more than 25 kilograms. Mr Smith accepted, and the primary judge found, that Mr Smith lifted nothing like that weight. Instead, he lifted a box of 12 x 800ml "VOSS" water bottles, weighing some 16.4kg. No challenge is made to that finding.
The statement of claim gave the following 13 particulars of negligence which are reproduced as Annexure A. Those particulars have been tailored to the case sought to be advanced by Mr Smith (and in this respect compare favourably with those propounded by Ready Workforce). In very large measure, they allege failures by Coles to undertake various precautions. However, three matters are conspicuous by their absence. 1. The first is the claim, permitted to be advanced over Coles' objection, and maintained throughout the trial, that the reason for the injury was that there was a row of racking only 1.7m high, under which Mr Smith had to stoop when picking up the water. 2. The second is that a slat of the pallet was broken, impeding Mr Smith's access to the box of water. 3. The third is the claim that a "pick stick" should have been made available to Mr Smith to assist in dragging the box closer to the aisle. The "pick stick" was a 180cm long thin metal pole with a handle at one end and a small base at the other end, perpendicular to the pole.

[8]

Overview of pick sticks at trial

Section 5B made the identification of the precaution and establishing that a reasonable person in Coles' position would have undertaken it critical to the success of Mr Smith's claim. To put it bluntly, if Mr Smith was to obtain judgment based on Coles' failure to do something, he needed to identify a risk of harm and to establish that the risk was foreseeable and not insignificant, and he also needed to identify precautions which a reasonable occupier in the position of Coles would have taken, having regard to the probability that harm would occur if the precautions were not taken, the likely seriousness of the harm, the burden of the precautions and the social utility of the activity which created the risk of harm. This is irrespective of the fact that his pleading did not engage with the Civil Liability Act.
The pick sticks were treated differently at trial from the height of the racking and the broken slat. They were not mentioned in opening. Both sides' experts had said, without elaboration, that pick sticks could have assisted, and both proceeded on the false premise that pick sticks were available in 2014. Neither expert was cross-examined. A reference was made to the pick sticks in cross-examination, to which Mr Smith responded that he had never heard of them and they had not been issued. The pick sticks assumed some prominence in closing submissions, but senior counsel eschewed the possibility that the trial might have departed from the pleadings, and insisted that they fell within the pleaded case.
The trial judge regarded Mr Dubos' evidence concerning the use of pick sticks as based on facts different from those her Honour found and therefore irrelevant. They were at the forefront of the submissions advanced on behalf of Mr Smith and Ready Workforce on appeal.

[9]

Mr Smith's case as opened

Mr Smith's case was opened on the basis that there were two reasons why he could not approach the box of water and lift it safely. He claimed that he could not stand on the pallet because of the 1.7m height of the racking. It was also put that the pallet had a broken slat. Immediately after the conclusion of the opening, counsel for Coles objected that: "The particulars of negligence make no reference to the configuration of the racking, the height, nor do they make any reference to the broken pallet."
The trial judge deferred the issue thereby flagged until evidence was adduced. When Mr Smith was asked questions about the broken pallet, her Honour overruled what, in effect, was a relevance objection, and permitted the evidence to be led.
It may be noted that the lay witnesses were all led in chief, and if statements had been supplied as to the evidence they were likely to give, it is not apparent from the transcript or the appeal books. Some idea of the plaintiff's likely evidence may be inferred from the assumptions briefed to his expert. It is far from clear to me that the overriding purpose, to which the parties, their lawyers and the Court were subject by reason of s 56 of the Civil Procedure Act 2005 (NSW), was facilitated by Mr Smith giving an oral account of his accident. Leading evidence in chief was necessary when questions of fact were determined by juries, who might be illiterate. There are other occasions when it is appropriate. But I respectfully doubt whether a default position that lay evidence be adduced without notice of what it is likely to be is either the fairest or most efficient procedure available in the 21st century in civil litigation.

[10]

Mr Smith's evidence - height of the racking above the pallet

Mr Smith gave firm evidence that when standing on the ground, he was at about eye level with the upper rack. He maintained in evidence in chief and in cross-examination that it was not 2 metres high, although he conceded that he never measured the height.
Mr Smith accepted that the box he was lifting was a box of 12 "VOSS" water bottles. Each bottle contained 800ml of water. It was common ground that the box weighed 16.4kg.
Although Mr Smith's claim that the racking was only 1.7m high was maintained throughout the trial, the primary judge found against him, and the rejection of this aspect of his evidence is not challenged on appeal. Coles adduced contemporaneous documentary evidence that the boxes of VOSS water were stored at ground level in slot DD291A in May 2014. As it happened, a survey of the warehouse had been undertaken in March 2014. The survey showed that the height of the beam above slot DD291A was 2100mm. There was no dispute that the beam was 110mm thick. Thus the clearance above floor level was 199cm, and the clearance above the level of the pallet was 184cm.
(There is nothing to suggest that Mr Smith or his lawyers had any notice of the documents which would be made available to support Coles' case that the racking was 1.99m high. I repeat the comments made four paragraphs above.)
It follows that Mr Smith could not have hit his head, or been concerned about hitting his head, had he stepped onto the pallet with one foot, keeping one foot on the ground in the aisle, and picked up the box. It may be that Mr Smith, who claimed a good recollection of the racking at eye level, was confusing this particular lift with one of the thousands of others he had performed in the years he had worked as a picker.

[11]

Mr Smith's evidence of the broken pallet

The remaining key factual element which had been mentioned in opening was the broken slat in the pallet. The evidence in relation to the slat is quite unclear.
It was agreed that each pallet's dimensions was 1165mm x 1165mm x 150mm, and that the lead boards were 150mm wide, with the intermediate boards being 95mm wide with a small gap between each board. Uniformity of pallet dimensions is essential for logistics, and may confidently be accepted.
The placement of the boxes of VOSS water bottles upon the pallet is shown in the photograph below. The photograph was taken in June 2018, some four years after the incident, and is of a different bay ("DD351", rather than "DD291") but there is no reason to think that the arrangement of the boxes on the pallet, or the configuration of two pallets in each bay, was any different from how it had been in May 2014. It is (at least to my eyes) consistent with a height of 1.99cm, although careful allowance must be had for parallax error (the key is to compare the top of the uppermost box, which must be around 1.7m, with the rear pillar of the racking immediately to its right in the photograph).
Mr Smith gave evidence in chief as to why he did not walk across the pallet and pick up the box as follows: "Q. Just take it slowly. Why didn't you walk across the pallet and pick up the box as you were told in your training? A. 'Cause the pallet was broken, you're unable to stand on it with two feet. Q. Why was that? A. 'Cause the board was indented in, broken inwards. Q. Could you have walked onto that pallet and walked without ducking your head? A. No. Q. Why? A. Cause breaking shelving was about my - just about my head height. Q. You indicate your nose and then you indicated your chin. A. Is - roughly. Q. Roughly, are you indicating that height of your chin when you were standing on the pallet or when you were on the ground outside? A. So, as I was on the pallet, inside. HER HONOUR Q. Let's just stand on the ground. Is the rack above your head, level with your head-- A. So, standing on the ground, I'd be about eye level with it. FLETT Q. In 2014, had you seen other bays at the level of your eyes? A. Yes. Q. Was it usual or unusual? A. It was usual. Q. How tall are you? A. About 182 centimetres. Q. It's been suggested that that rack height was 2 metres. Does that accord with your recollection? A. No."

[12]

The placement of Mr Smith's feet

Mr Smith did give clear unchallenged evidence that he placed one foot on the pallet and kept the other on the ground in the aisle. There was no dispute about this on appeal (Transcript 22 July 2020, p 6.25).
Parts of this evidence have been reproduced above. Mr Smith continued: "Q. Were you able to get that foot that was on the palette any closer to the box? A. No. Q. Why not? A. Because the board was broken, so-- Q. So you couldn't step any closer? A. No."
The primary judge made no findings about precisely where Mr Smith stepped. The parties invited this Court to do so, if it could, in order to avoid a retrial. Aspects of what occurred can be illuminated by the evidence of the dimensions of the pallet, the box, the racking and Mr Smith's height.
There was conflicting evidence as to the dimensions of the VOSS water boxes. Dr Fairfax said each box was "22cm (L) x 20cm (W) x 31 cm (H)". That is obviously wrong. Boxes of 12 cylindrical bottles can never be essentially square (22 x 20). They are inevitably much closer to an oblong, with the ratio between the short and long side being 3:4. (Twelve circulate bottles will, in the absence of internal packing, inevitably be arranged in a carton in a 3x4 rectangle.) As much is confirmed by the photograph, which shows that the base of each box is much closer to being an oblong than the near square described by Dr Fairfax. Mr Dubos said they were "300 mm in height x 290 mm in length x 220 mm deep". This is roughly consistent with the basic geometry of packing 12 cylinders, and the photographs in evidence.
The photograph reproduced above shows that the pallet was packed so as to have the boxes oriented in different directions. The total length of boxes facing the aisle when a pallet was positioned in the bay was 290 + 220 + 220 + 220 = 950mm, leaving around 100mm on each edge of the pallet empty. It is certainly open to proceed on the basis that the last box remaining on the pallet was hard on the far edge of the pallet, in the corner and oriented with either its narrow 220mm face facing the aisle or the broad 290mm face facing the aisle.
The pallet was 1165mm square. Thus even assuming that the last box of water sat right on the far edge of the pallet, the distance between the front of the pallet and the closest face of the box was in the order of 910 or 840mm, depending on its orientation. More relevantly, the distance between the front of the pallet and the middle of the box of water (where a picker would obtain a grip) was in the order of 1020 or 990mm.

[13]

Departures from Mr Smith's training

There was evidence accepted by her Honour that Mr Smith was trained how to lift properly and safely, to bend his knees and brace his abdominal muscles rather than bending his back. Mr Smith accepted that he did not do so. He accepted in cross-examination that he knew that in order to lift safely he needed to maintain the natural curve of the back, and agreed that he lifted with a bent back when he was injured, contrary to a specific prohibition: "Q. ... this is manual handling log 027. You will see that it shows you pictures of safe and unsafe lifting methods. Is that right? A. Yes. Q. And if you look at the second picture down with the big cross, that's what you did on that day, wasn't it? A. Yes. Q. Specifically prohibited, correct? A. Yes."
Mr Smith also agreed that the technique he adopted was contrary to the technique he had been taught. He also accepted that he knew that if he could not get close to an object, he had been instructed to leave it, and he had not done this. He accepted that he was aware that he should have tilted the box to facilitate the lift.
There was ample basis for the finding by the primary judge that: "Mr Smith accepted that he knew how to lift; knew how to lift this carton properly; knew that he should not have bent his back; knew the correct lifting and manual handling procedures; and yet did otherwise. Whether by design; operation of a good system; or sheer serendipity, Mr Smith knew that which he should have been taught in a competent system of training and review."
It was on this basis that the primary judge found that had Mr Smith lifted in accordance with the manual handling technique in his training, the injury would not have occurred.

[14]

The use of pick sticks

The most prominent submission on appeal concerned the use of pick sticks. Thus, Mr Cranitch submitted: "The most obvious solution to this problem which her Honour completely ignored was that she failed to have regard to the fact that there was a tool which was supposedly available in the system of manual handling developed by Coles, which is known as a pick stick. An example of the pick stick, for your Honours' edification, appears at Dubois's report at p 270 of the blue book. Your Honours will see in photograph 5, it's obviously very shiny because the reflections come up as little stars along the handle, one could have perhaps noticed the difference to that, but your Honours will see it's a long metal tube with what appears to be an end that looks a bit like a domestic hoe that one would use in the garden."
The photograph to which he referred was this (the three thin white lines perpendicular to the pole in the middle of the stick and towards the handle appear to be reflections from the camera's flash):
The use of pick sticks was not pleaded or particularised. It was not mentioned in opening.

[15]

Evidence concerning pick sticks

In cross-examination, the topic of pick sticks was raised by counsel for Coles, as he proceeded through the following page from the "Coles Logistics Safe Work Practice" Manual:
Mr Smith was asked these questions by reference to that page: "Q. This particular carton you didn't regard as too heavy for you to lift, did you? A. No. Q. And you had lifted these boxes of drinks previously? A. Yes. Q. And then it says use a pick stick instead of overreaching for stock. Do not lift and rattle the gravity food. What was a pick stick? A. What was a pick stick? Q. Yeah. A. I don't know. Q. A pick stick was a stick used to cause goods to come to the front of a pallet or some area where you couldn't necessarily reach them, wasn't it? A. No. Q. You don't think so? A. No, the pick stick never - it was never there when I was employed at Coles. Q. You say there were no pick sticks. And if you just skip down to the last item under first level picking, Beware of the pallet condition, missing bullets, bails and splinters. Do you see that? A. Yes. ..."
No other oral evidence was given concerning pick sticks.
True it is that the experts had exchanged opinions in their reports about the pick stick, and the page of the manual. Mr Dubos had said, by reference to the manual, that "A pick stick was not used in an attempt to drag the box forward on the pallet, but instead Mr Smith overreached potentially". His report addressed the specific question concerning precautions as follows: "'4. If adequate safeguards were not in place, what precautions should Coles have taken in response to the risk of injury?' On my inspection of the system of work, on 15 December 2007, there was a height of 2 metres between the ground and the first level of racking, where the Voss still water was stored in the Coles Distribution Centre. The provision of a 2 metre high space (my instructed assumption is 1.7 metres) at the time of Mr Smith's accident, would have reduced risks of injury. The regular use of a forklift truck or pallet jack to turn pallets in racking around, where there were only boxes on the pallet left towards the rear of the pallet, would have reduced risks of injury. The provision of one or two pallet jacks in each aisle and mandatory procedures for pulling a pallet out from under racking where products are difficult to access, could also have reduced risks. The immediate detection and replacement of any pallets with damage to the timber on the surface of the pallet, or related hazards such as protruding nails, as part of a mandatory system of work could have reduced risks. The provision and mandatory use of a pick stick to drag boxes forward on a pallet where necessary could have reduced risks. On my inspection of 15/12/2017 the width of the bay in racking where the Voss water was stored was 2.73 metres. With this type of width, 1150 mm2 pallets could be stored using a forklift truck underneath the racking so that there was a space of approximately 430 mm in the centre of the bay between the pallets. The mandatory provision of this type of space between pallets could have meant that a worker could step between the pallets in order to access items towards the back of a pallet, and reduce handling risks."

[16]

Pick sticks were outside the pleaded case

Notwithstanding that exchange of expert opinion, the case was run on the basis that the issues would be determined on the pleadings.
This was raised during Mr Catsanos' closing submissions (which preceded those of Mr Smith), just before the adjournment, after submissions on the use of pick sticks (and the possibility that the pallets should have been more widely spaced so as to permit access to their sides and rear): "PARKER: Just before the Court rises, this is all very interesting, this access argument and the pick sticks argument, but there is not one scintilla of a particular of negligence in relation to access or to the pick sticks. My learned friend needs to deal with this, this business of going off on a tangent and finding something that you can hang your hat on at some point of time. It's just not appropriate. Perhaps my learned friend can take it up after lunch. HER HONOUR: To be honest, I thought it was all about training and supervision. That's what seemed to be particularised, but we'll come back to it."
After an initial protest, which appears to have been an attempt to rely upon that class of trial where the parties have agreed to litigate issues beyond the pleadings (cf Banque Commerciale SA (en liqn) v Akhil Holdings Ltd (1990) 169 CLR 279 at 287; [1990] HCA 11), Mr Catsanos renounced any attempt to contend that because of the exchange of expert reports, the case had expanded beyond the pleadings. "HER HONOUR: Okay, are you now saying it's pleaded or not pleaded? CATSANOS: I'm saying it's pleaded. HER HONOUR: Right, well, what the experts have to say doesn't define the pleadings. That would be the thing called the pleadings. So if it's in the pleadings, that's fine but pleadings remain the pleadings. CATSANOS: Well, I'm, at the moment, in a position where I'm guessing as to what your Honour might think about that but if your Honour took the view that it wasn't in the pleadings-- HER HONOUR: Then it wouldn't be in the pleadings, that's what pleadings are about. CATSANOS: But if - but the authorities make it quite clear, if a matter is being dealt with in substance and it has been, then it's a matter your Honour ought have regard to. HER HONOUR: Well, there are arguments about that. Are you now saying it's not pleaded but you still want to maintain it? CATSANOS: No, I say it's pleaded. I've told your Honour why. Right, well, moving on then."

[17]

Pick sticks would not give rise to breach in any event

But the matter may also be addressed substantively, and, in light of aspects of the reasons of the primary judge which are uncertain, it is appropriate to do so. I am unpersuaded that the use of pick sticks would amount to a basis for concluding breach of duty if the point were considered on its merits.
There are two mentions of pick sticks on the relevant page of the Safe Work Practice manual (which has been reproduced above). One, at the bottom of the page, under the heading "Picking at Height", there is the statement, "Ensure you use a pick stick to pull cartons/objects forward from the rear of the pallet". The other, to which a great deal of attention was given during the appeal, was under the heading "First Level Picking". It was the fourth entry. The first three concerned lifting. The fourth entry provided: "Use pick sticks instead of overreaching for stock, do not lift and rattle the gravity feed".
When the document is read as a whole, it seems tolerably clear that the use of pick sticks had nothing to do with a lift of an item from the first level where there was a flat surface, as opposed to a gravity feed. The sense of the entry which was treated as critical for the purpose of the appeal is that in cases where there is a gravity feed (which I understand to refer to items being stored on a slope, such that they are assisted by gravity to slide down towards the aisle) and an item is stuck away from the employee's immediate reach, then rather than overreaching for it, or rattling the shelving to cause it to descend, a pick stick should be used instead.
That is the ordinary meaning of the words used. That is confirmed by the second reference to pick stick - "Ensure you use a pick stick to pull cartons/objects forward from the rear of the pallet". That applies only to "Picking at Height". If the instruction were to use pick sticks for all items at the rear of a pallet, then there would be no reference to a gravity feed, and the second reference to pick sticks would not be confined to items which are picked at height.
This was pointed out during the hearing: "EMMETT AJA: Were pick sticks used for moving cartons such as this? That reference suggests that they're used for moving things that are in terms to slide down by gravity. CATSANOS: No, your Honour, it's meant to avoid overreaching, but I take your Honour's point."

[18]

The findings by the primary judge as to the mechanics of the incident

The primary judge quite carefully attended to what precisely happened. In light of ground 11 of Mr Smith's appeal, it is desirable to reproduce the relevant portions of pp 22-24 of her reasons: "The front of the carton, which was 22cm long; 20cm wide; and 31 cm high (exhibit 5 paragraph 91) would have been about 1 metre from the front of the pallet if the carton was about 22cm long and 20cm wide, and the pallet was 1.165m square with a lead board of 15cm and intermediate boards of 9.5cm. Mr Dubos offered slightly different measurements (exhibit C/8, paragraph 33): 'Each box of still water measured 300 mm in height x 290 mm in length x 220 mm deep'."
(I interpolate: as noted above, Dr Fairfax's dimensions are demonstrably wrong, and those given by Mr Dubos are not "slightly" different: the difference is between 200 and 290mm, or 45%.) "Mr Dubos' photograph 1 (exhibit C/28, extracted opposite) suggest that carton spanned at least the rear two boards of the pallet. Dr Fairfax calculated by reference to his height (exhibit 5/paragraphs 77 (figure 2) and 160) that Mr Smith's 'step forward was at least 53cm.' That is roughly 45% of the depth/width of the 1.165m pallet. The back of the carton was obviously about the pallet width from the front of pallet. The broken board cannot have been the 15cm lead board. If that was in front of his foot, he would not have put a foot on the pallet at all. If his ordinary stepping distance was in the order of 53cm as Dr Fairfax calculated, it is likely that Mr Smith would have stepped over a breakage in the first few boards. It is unlikely that it was one of the first few boards that was broken, leaving Mr Smith having stepped some way onto pallet before his foot approached a broken board of about 9.5cm wide but some (uncertain) distance into the pallet that prevented him from getting the foot that was on the pallet any closer to the carton. His forward reach across the 1.165m pallet was reduced correspondingly. Dr Fairfax considered this step onto the pallet provided Mr Smith with a stable base upon which to start the lift, saying (in exhibit 5) that: 115 ... Having one foot forward on the pallet provides a more stable base for lifting. 116 ... Having feet together means that the base is small and the person is unstable when lifting. Having one foot forward provides a more stable base which ensures a safer lift. ... Ready Workforce submitted that: 28 In the present case, the worker gave unchallenged evidence that the box of mineral water in question was 90cm from his body when he lifted it (Tcpt 66.45 - 67.15). 29 It is inescapable then, even on the evidence of Dr Fairfax, that the load was dangerously heavy in the circumstances of the lift being undertaken by the worker at the time of his injury .... 42 Because of the broken pallet, the worker was unable to get his foot closer to the box, which meant he had to reach and lift the box 90cm from his body (Tcpt 67.10 - 67.30). If the distance measured is the forward reach, 90cm is equally unrealistic. If that were so, with his foot on the pallet Mr Smith's torso was about 26cm into the 116.5cm pallet, i.e., on the first 9.5cm board past 15cm lead board and no further forward than approaching the near edge of the third board of the pallet. If the second or third board were the one broken it is inherently unlikely that Mr Smith would not have simply stepped over it. Mr Smith's estimate of reaching about 90cm is unrealistic even if the reach was not purely forwards in direction. It is longer than Dr Fairfax estimated was possible, having calculated his reach at about 87cm (exhibit 5/paragraph 79, table 1). The more likely measurement of Mr Smith's reach at the time is about two feet (say 60-61cm), as he stood with one foot some distance onto the pallet. That measurement gives little guidance as to either the position of Mr Smith's foot on the pallet or the distance of the carton from his torso. Mr Smith's measurement was to where he had placed his hands underneath the 30 or 31cm tall box. On Dr Fairfax's calculations the diagonal of the carton was about 38cm (exhibit 5, paragraph 91, footnote 55, and it might be slightly longer on Mr Dubos' figures), which is roughly half the reach. The base of the carton sat about 15cm above the ground (on the pallet). When the 1.82m tall Mr Smith was standing stooped, with one foot on the pallet, Mr Smith's shoulders were about 150cm above the ground on Dr Fairfax's calculations (exhibit 5, paragraph 79), and less above the top of the pallet. The distance of the carton from Mr Smith's torso is effectively the hypotenuse of the distance from his stooped shoulders to the pallet surface (the base of the carton) and forward to the carton. Allowing for stooping/leaning and bending of his back, the distance of the carton from Mr Smith's torso rests on speculation about angles and triangular calculations about which I do not conjecture. I reject Ready Workforce's submissions that: 52 Accepting, as it is submitted one must, that access from the front of the pallet was dangerously compromised, there was inevitably a risk that the lifting methods advanced by Dr Fairfax, or to be found in Coles manual handling documents, (see Exhibit I at pp.78 - 89) could not be implemented. 53 The only way the worker could have safely lifted the box in the circumstances would have been to walk around the pallet to get close to it from the side, however that option was not available to him ... Dr Fairfax's opinion was to the contrary. She determined that Mr Smith had placed his feet correctly (exhibit 5/paragraphs 114-115) but should not have bent his back (exhibit 5/paragraphs 120-121). On her assessment (and the relevant Coles' instructions) Mr Smith had to lower himself with a straight back (bending his knees to squat or lunge), and tip the carton towards himself (exhibit 5/paragraphs 90-92), which simultaneously raised the carton to 'a height equal to about half the length of the carton's diagonal cross-section' i.e., about … 17cm (or 32cm taking into account the pallet height), and brought the carton forward closer towards his torso, as is illustrated and directed in Coles' manual handling standard operating procedure SOP038SG (exhibit 1/85). On Dr Fairfax's calculations, which I accept, Mr Smith would have been able to lift the relevant weight safely; and had positioned himself correctly with his feet. Even allowing for his recollection of reaching roughly 60-61cm to put his hands underneath the 31cm tall carton, he was reaching about one-third less than Dr Fairfax's calculation of his reach of 87cm (exhibit 5/paragraph79, table 1), and his reach would have been reduced by tilting the carton so to raise it as well as bringing it towards his torso, holding it differently and squatting or lunging with a straight back. As Dr Fairfax opined (in exhibit 5): 87 Normally, if a carton is quite light, a worker will commonly lift it by the sides. If a carton is of a moderate or heavy weight, however, a worker will normally tip the carton on its edge and lift it by the comers ... 88 This method of tipping a carton enables a better grip and means that the worker does not have to bend so far down to pick the carton up. It is an ergonomically more comfortable lift, and it is safer. Given the expert opinion that it was possible to lift the carton safely, the dispute about whether Mr Smith could or should have left the carton where it was is something of a diversion."

[19]

Overview of the position

The onus at all times rested with Mr Smith, insofar as his action depended upon Coles' failure to take precautions against the risk that he might suffer injury, (a) to identify one or more precautions on which he relied, (b) to establish that a reasonable person in Coles' position would have taken those precautions, and (c) to demonstrate that if those precautions had been taken, he would not have suffered injury.
It was accepted at trial that, at least on paper, Coles had established a safe system of work. I did not understand it to be in issue, at least in this Court, that but for Mr Smith failing to lift the box in accordance with his training - by flexing his abdominal muscles, not bending his back, and not twisting his body - the lift would have been performed safely. After all, that was the opinion of Mr Dubos, the expert on whom Mr Smith relied. That is not sufficient in order for Coles to succeed. Coles owed obligations as if it were, or at least akin to those owed by, an employer, and that extended to taking steps bearing in mind the possibility that Mr Smith might, through thoughtlessness, inadvertence or carelessness, depart from his training.
The first question was to determine, by reference to all the evidence, the mechanics of the injury, if it was possible to do so. Her Honour found that the box could not have been lifted safely without Mr Smith bending his knees or lunging. It followed that the "height of the shelf above the carton is irrelevant so long as there was room to approach with knees bent by squatting or lunging, as there was on all measurements" (reasons, p 30.6). (Hence the observations above about an additional 110mm clearance when Mr Smith was standing on the pallet would not have affected her Honour's reasoning.)
Section 5B(1)(c) required an analysis of the precautions which, according to Mr Smith and Ready Force, a reasonable person in the position of Coles would have implemented. In this Court's decision in Transpacific Industrial Solutions Pty Ltd v Phelps [2013] NSWCA 31, also a "host employer" case, that was the analysis employed. Barrett JA, with whom McColl and Basten JJA agreed, reproduced in this context what had been said in O'Connor v Commissioner for Government Transport (1954) 100 CLR 225 at 230; [1954] HCA 11: "The standard of care for an employee's safety is not a low one, but in a case such as this the question must be whether any suggested course that was omitted could really be regarded as reasonable."

[20]

Mr Smith's appeal

Mr Smith's notice of appeal contained 14 grounds. His written submissions were directed to each ground. His counsel's oral submissions were not. He said that "What I was seeking to do was to cover in a generic way matters which might not have been picked up directly in our written submissions". This illustrates the problem of far too many grounds of appeal.
Mr Cranitch summarised the position as follows: "Your Honours, I don't think there's any magic about it. But it's clear that even if it was a slat beside the box or the next slat back towards him, in either circumstance that's around about, I don't know, I think they're something like six slats across the box. That's about a third of the distance that you're unable to put your feet in, on any analysis of it. But with respect, your Honours, we don't have to go that far. This is what his case was. This is what her Honour had to deal with. That evidence was uncontradicted. Mr Parker didn't pick up the cudgels on it. He didn't seek to challenge that evidence. That's how the evidence stands, with respect. No amount of analysis is going to come to a firm conclusion one way or the other, save only that he is a man who worked there for three to four years, never had an injury, always got his KPI's. Clearly was obeying all the requirements that he had to perform. Otherwise he might well have been injured earlier. He would have been injured earlier one assumes. On this particular occasion, and it was made perfectly clear that he's expected to make an assessment of the lift every time he makes it by Coles. He made the assessment that I'll try and do it but I can't get quite to where I should be in order to lift safely. The solution was obvious. All he needed to have was a pick stick and that wasn't available to him."
I cannot accept this, for the following reasons. First, I disagree that the analysis starts and ends with the concededly imprecise testimonial evidence of Mr Smith, and ignores the uncontroversial dimensions of pallet, box and beams. Secondly, to say that "about a third of the distance that you're unable to put you feet in, on any analysis of it" materially overstates the difficulty caused by a broken 95mm slat. Thirdly, Mr Smith was not "obeying all the requirements he had to perform"; he candidly conceded he was lifting improperly, and twisting. Fourthly, the solution of the pick stick was not "obvious". It had not been pleaded or opened. It arose during the trial, was seized upon by Mr Smith and Ready Workforce, but her Honour appears to have regarded it, in my view correctly, as outside the pleaded case. If that were not so, I remain unpersuaded that the use of a pick stick to drag a 16.4kg box across a pallet is a precaution which a reasonable person in Coles' position would have adopted.

[21]

The judge erred in finding that the respondent had implemented a safe system of work in circumstances where the appellant injured his back stretching forward to lift a carton sitting on the rear of a pallet.
This is conclusionary, and fails to have regard to s 5B. Insofar as his case was based on the failure to take precautions, it was necessary in order to establish breach for Mr Smith to identify some precaution which an occupier in the position of Coles would have taken.

[22]

The judge erred in attaching little or no weight to the evidence of Mr Dubos and/or finding his evidence inadmissible.
Large portions of Mr Dubos' report were ruled inadmissible or admissible only as assumptions at the third day of the hearing - not that this would be obvious to a casual reader of the appeal books. None of the paragraphs which were rejected, and none which had been admitted only as assumptions, was marked. I only appreciated this when working through this ground of appeal.
Those preparing the appeal books need to indicate what portions of evidence have been rejected and what has been admitted conditionally, as required by UCPR r 51.29(2)(a)(ii)-(3). It is important in every case, but vital where as here a ground of appeal is the wrongful rejection of documentary evidence.
While on the topic of deficient appeal books, it would be as well in an appeal where quantum was not in issue to recall that the appeal books must contain only the documents "relevant and necessary" for the hearing and determination of the appeal: UCPR r 51.29(1)(b), and so the hundreds of pages of medical and financial documents tendered at trial on Mr Smith's case for damages (which constitute the majority of the appeal books) should have been excluded.
If I had reached a different conclusion on the outcome of the appeal, I would have favoured a special costs order concerning the cost of preparing appeal books which do not comply with the rules and fall short of the standards required in this Court; cf Insurance Australia Ltd t/a NRMA Insurance v Milton [2016] NSWCA 156 at [61]-[70].
A deal of Mr Dubos' report was rejected, or else admitted on a limited basis. For all the effort that was directed to objections (which occupy some 60 pages of transcript on the third day of the trial), no one thought it advisable to elicit from Mr Dubos how much of his opinions continued to be applicable to the very different facts as they emerged at the trial. In particular, despite Mr Smith's acceptance that he was lifting a 16.4kg box of bottled water, despite the evidence of the racking being 1.99m high, and despite the evidence of the absence of pick sticks, no attempt was made to cause Mr Dubos to revisit his assumptions. As it happens, the lay evidence was given on 1 and 2 July 2019, with the objections and submissions taking place the following week, 10 and 11 July 2019, so there was ample opportunity to do so.

[23]

The judge erred in finding that the use of 'pick sticks' was irrelevant to the question of whether the respondent had implemented a safe system of work.
This has been addressed above.

[24]

The judge erred in finding the critical issue was whether the appellant lifted the carton correctly.

[25]

The judge should have found that the critical issue was whether the appellant could get close enough to the carton to lift it correctly.

[26]

The judge should have found that the appellant could not get close enough to the carton because the pallet on which the carton was sitting was broken.
Enough has already been said in order to resolve these three related grounds. The primary judge concluded that the broken slat did not prevent Mr Smith from getting close enough to the box to perform a safe lift. It has not been shown that the approximately 10cm gap between Mr Smith's foot and the box had any impact upon the safety of his lift. Her Honour was with respect correct to regard the evidence about the slat as a distraction. These grounds are not made out.

[27]

The judge erred in permitting the appellant to re-examine only on matters arising out of cross examination that were 'ambiguous'.

[28]

The judge erred in not permitting the appellant to re-examine on the issue of whether the appellant could get close enough to the carton to lift it correctly.
Mr Flett's re-examination of Mr Smith was brief. It occupies pp 101-103 of the transcript. There were two occasions where the primary judge intervened.
In cross-examination, Mr Smith had been taken to a manual handling document, and asked these questions: "Q. Now, if you go over to the next page, at page 80 - this is manual handling log 027. You will see that it shows you pictures of safe and unsafe lifting methods. Is that right? A. Yes. Q. And if you look at the second picture down with the big cross, that's what you did on that day, wasn't it? A. Yes. Q. Specifically prohibited, correct? A. Yes. Q. And then if you look at the words, if you look at the second item, always assess the load and the distance to be travelled. You did that, didn't you? A. Yes. Q. You did that every day, all the time. A. Yeah."
In re-examination, Mr Smith was taken to p 80, and was asked "Was it after training?" when the trial judge interrupted saying "Re-examination. Where's the ambiguity in the answer?" Counsel then asked "Did you have to use your commonsense and self-assessment?" and again the primary judge intervened saying "Where's the ambiguity in the answer?" The transcript does not record Mr Flett identifying any ambiguity in the answers, or indeed attempting to cavil with the rulings of the primary judge.
There was one other passage where Mr Flett was cut off: "Q. You said that you had done that type of lift in the past? A. Yes. Q. Had you ever been stopped by anybody from doing that type of lift? CATSANOS [scil PARKER]: I object. HER HONOUR: Again could you explain to me where the ambiguity is that we're-- FLETT: The ambiguity is it was raised - HER HONOUR: No, no, please. Re-examination. Not a free kick. You've had two plaintiff's goes. You might try to confine it. FLETT Q. You were asked whether you had ever done that lift in the past. Do you remember that, by Mr Parker. A. Yes. Q. How many times do you think you would have done that type- HER HONOUR: Re-examination. Please. FLETT: It is re-examination, with great respect. HER HONOUR: No, it's not. FLETT: It's clarifying the answer. HER HONOUR: Yes. But it's not clarifying an ambiguity. It's not a free kick. It's certainly not a third free kick."

[29]

The judge should have found that the appellant could not get close enough to the carton to lift it correctly because the pallet on which it was sitting was inaccessible from the sides or rear.
No oral submissions were directed by Mr Smith to this ground. The written submissions assert that "[h]er Honour should have made a finding of fact that the pallet on which the carton was sitting was inaccessible from the sides and the rear". This is because, so it was said, such a finding, together with a broken slat and the absence of a pick stick caused it to become reasonably clear that Mr Smith had no choice but to bend his back in the way he did to obtain access to the carton.
There was no dispute that it was not possible to access the pallet from the side or the rear. That was implicit in her Honour's reasoning. Such a finding would make no difference. The material findings were that the broken slat was not shown to have sufficiently prevented Mr Smith's access to the box to prevent a safe lift from being performed.
The primary judge rejected the submission based upon leaving a 40cm gap between each pair of pallets on the basis that it was tentatively offered by Mr Dubos, without analysing the consequences it would have upon the operations of the warehouse.

[30]

The judge erred in failing to take proper account of evidence of the known frequency of broken pallets.
No oral submissions were directed to this ground.
The written submissions asserted that broken slats on pallets was "common". No reference was given to such evidence. There was evidence that "from time to time" pallets get damaged, including cases where the damage was not known until the stock was taken off. No foundation was laid for the submission that "the evidence of Mr Tryhuba and the uncontradicted evidence of Smith … suggests that the problem was not only common but was well known to be common". Indeed, it is not clear to me what "common" means in this context - there was evidence that the warehouse occupied 65,000m2 and had 200-300 people working in it at any one time.
A minor point made in the written submissions is that the primary judge reproduced on pp 42-43 of her reasons two questions and answers which had been rejected. But it was not submitted that the error was material, and I fail to see how it could have been.

[31]

The judge erred in not raising with appellant that she was considering finding the calculations at pages 22-24 of her judgment, denying the appellant a reasonable opportunity to respond.
These pages have been reproduced above. The exchange with Mr Catsanos preceded Mr Fleet's closing submissions. It was perfectly plain that her Honour was considering the evidence of the dimensions of the pallet, the slats, the box, the racking and Mr Smith's evidence. How else was she to determine the mechanism of what occurred?
Further, Coles' written submissions (which were provided and to which Mr Parker spoke before Mr Catsanos or Mr Flett commenced their address) analysed in some detail the evidence concerning the height of the pallet, the racking, Dr Fairfax's evidence about Mr Smith's reach (see especially Black 428-429). At trial, Mr Parker made this submission orally: "PARKER: Yes, it's got an indented board but a board is .9 - sorry, 150 millimetres at the front or it's 95 millimetres if it's another slat in the middle. Well, he's a grown-up. He can step over that without any problem whatsoever. I mean, it just doesn't compute. The other problem with that is, when you come to that, Mr Smith gave evidence that his reach was two feet. He's asked to put that in centimetres and somebody suggested, he suggested, '90 centimetres I guess.' Well, it's not. It's 60 centimetres but his evidence was 2 feet. You convert it, it's 60 centimetres, and that's much more realistic because the pallet itself is 1.2. Depending on the orientation of the box, the distance from the edge of the box to the front of the pallet is 875 millimetres or 945 millimetres. If it's 875 millimetres and he's reaching 90 centimetres, as he guessed, he's not on the pallet at all because it's 300 millimetres in if he's standing on the ground. That can't be right. If it's 875 centimetres, he's got about 45 millimetres which is about 3 centimetres, it's about an inch, so he perched on it. That's unlikely to be right too. So the reality is that it was two feet and he was easily able to reach the box."
It should have been clear, and I see no reason to doubt that it was in fact clear at the time, that the primary judge was attempting to understand the evidence so as to make findings about the basic mechanics of the incident, and to resolve the submissions she had received on that fundamental issue. This was necessarily based on the height of the racking, the dimensions of the pallet and the boxes, and the location of the broken slat. This was reflected in the exchanges during submissions, some of which have been reproduced above. There was no denial of procedural fairness.

[32]

The judge erred in failing to take proper account of the evidence in relation to the appellant's initial training and should have found that the respondent's annual reviews of the appellant's training were inadequate.
Despite the potential breadth of this ground, the submissions in support of it (which occupy less than half a page) turned on the failure to issue a pick stick. This is not established, for the reasons already given. The evidence concerning Mr Smith's training, and his accepted departure from that training, has been summarised above.

[33]

The judge erred in failing to find that a system of bonuses, under which the appellant was paid extra if he achieved 'picks' in excess of his KPls, subjected the appellant to pressure to work more quickly than was safe.
This has been addressed above. In short, there was no evidence of what the KPI or the bonus was, although there was evidence that workers sought to achieve it and that the extra money mattered to them. Mr Cranitch submitted that her Honour "ignored the pressures upon the appellant ... in terms of working at speed". I disagree. The primary judge explicitly found that Mr Smith was not rushing. Indeed, Mr Smith gave no evidence that he was rushing. The primary judge found that the bonus system was not causally connected with the injury. No basis has been established to overturn that finding.

[34]

The judge erred in failing to find that the respondent's system of work did not take account [of] the possibility of the appellant's thoughtlessness, or inadvertence, or carelessness in carrying out repetitive work.
This ground is not wholly without merit. Part of the reasons of the primary judge appear to proceed on the basis that once Mr Smith departed from the modes of lifting he had been trained to follow, then there could be no breach. But that does not exclude the possibility of other precautions, which a reasonable person in Coles' position would have put in place, and which would have prevented Mr Smith from suffering the injury. As Mr Cranitch put it: "There's no doubt he lifted incorrectly but what her Honour fails to deal with in our respectful submission is why he lifted incorrectly. She failed to address the background circumstances which caused him for the first time in three or four years, it seems, to lift in an incorrect manner."
While the work was not "repetitive" in the sense of an assembly line, it may be accepted that Coles was required to identify unnecessary risks, including those which might arise through a worker's inadvertence or carelessness. As French CJ, Kiefel, Bell and Nettle JJ explained in Deal v Father Pius Kodakkathanath (2016) 258 CLR 281; [2016] HCA 31 at [53]: "authority makes clear that, where a task is capable of being carried out in more than one way, as it was in this case, it is the employer's responsibility so far as is reasonably practicable to identify the risks potentially associated with each way and, so far as is reasonably practicable, to guard against those risks by implementing systems calculated to constrain the employee to carrying out the task in the safest way."
I am prepared to proceed, favourably to Mr Smith, on that basis. But I remain unpersuaded that there was material error. Ultimately, Mr Smith needed to identify a precaution which a reasonable person in the position of Coles would have taken. The use of pick sticks was outside his case, and I am not persuaded they were a practical precaution which an occupier in the position of Coles would have used. The other matters which were proposed were found by the primary judge to be impracticable (such as rotation of pallets as they became empty, or making available access corridors down the sides or at the rear of pallets). This ground is not made out.

[35]

Ready Workforce's appeal

Ready Workforce provided the 17 paragraphs of particulars in support of its claim under s 151Z. They are in annexure "B". Coles' defence identified precisely the same 17 paragraphs as particulars of an allegation of contributory negligence. None of these particulars could have been drafted with Mr Smith's claim in mind. To take the most obvious, particular (l) of negligence: a "failure to guard the worker". What can this mean? Why did Coles respond by saying that one way in which Mr Smith was at fault was his failure to guard himself? The common law has a long tradition of fictional allegations (notably the Bill of Middlesex) but those days are long since past. Whatever be the reason for these formulaic particulars, it is clear that one cannot expect that the case pleaded and particularised by Ready Workforce will be more extensive than that put by Mr Smith. There is, of course, nothing in the particulars concerning pick sticks, or providing any basis for concluding that the use of pick sticks was somehow wider in Ready Workforce's case than in Mr Smith's case.
Ready Workforce's first ground ("The trial judge erred in concluding that [Coles] was not in breach of the duty of care it owed to [Mr Smith]" is conclusionary. Ground 2 was substantially identical to ground 2 of Mr Smith's appeal and fails for the same reasons.

[36]

The trial judge erred in concluding that the worker's theoretical knowledge of how to lift, provided an absolute answer to the various allegations of breach of duty made against Coles.

[37]

The trial judge erred in focussing on whether the worker in fact lifted correctly as opposed to the reasons why he lifted in an unsafe manner.

[38]

The trial judge erred when assessing the system of work and the question of breach in failing to have adequate regard to the potential for the worker to lift unsafely because of inadvertence, carelessness, or pressure associated with productivity whilst performing repetitive work.
These grounds fail for the same reason as ground 14 of Mr Smith's appeal.

[39]

The trial judge's decision was contrary to and/or against the weight of evidence.
This formulaic ground, not accompanied by any submissions directed to it, does not assist.

[40]

The trial judge erred in her treatment of the worker's evidence in relation to the system of work and the lifting he was undertaking when injured, and in particular:

[41]

(a) Her Honour erred in failing to take proper account of the evidence establishing that the worker was unable to obtain free access to the box he was lifting because of the broken pallet.

[42]

(b) Her Honour erred in failing to take proper account of the unchallenged evidence that the worker lifted the box in question with the load away from his body because his access to that box was compromised.

[43]

(c) Her Honour erred in ignoring or failing to take proper account of the worker's unchallenged evidence that he was never provided with pick sticks.

[44]

(d) Her Honour erred in failing to take proper account of the evidence in relation to the initial training provided to the worker and the inadequacy of the annual reviews conducted by Coles thereafter.

[45]

(e) Her Honour erred in failing to take proper account of the evidence that the worker was working at a fast pace because of the prevailing bonus system, pick rates and congestion associated with work being performed by others in the workplace.

[46]

(f) Her Honour erred in failing to take proper account of the prevalence of broken pallets and the practical effects of that on the system of work.

These grounds are unhelpfully vague. All are factual, and a complaint of "failing to take proper account" in isolation does not much assist; the real question is what finding of fact Ready Workforce is asking the appellate court to make. Concerning (a) and (b), a large part of the judgment is concerned with the effect of the broken slat upon Mr Smith's access to the box, and for the reasons I have sought to give above, I see no error in her Honour's conclusion that the broken slat was ultimately a distraction. The complaint about pick sticks has also been addressed above. The complaints about training and annual reviews are addressed below, when dealing with ground 15. The complaints about working at fast rates and the "prevalence" of broken pallets is addressed by grounds 13 and 9 respectively of Mr Smith's appeal.

[47]

The trial judge erred in rejecting the appellant's case that the lack of access down the sides and at the rear of the pallets created an unnecessary risk of injury and that Coles failed to take reasonable precautions against the risk of injury suffered by the worker.
The written submissions focussed on the lack of access along the sides of pallets, and the arithmetic which yielded the possibility that a 400mm gap could be created between each pair of pallets. It was put that: "Whilst a corridor of 400mm down the centre of the pallets may not have been generous, it would have provided at least some further access and the opportunity for people in the circumstances confronted by the worker, to move to the back of the pallet. Of course, having only one pallet in the pick bay or designing the pick bays to accommodate more room around the pallets, would have avoided the risk in question. There is no reason why Coles could not have done that. ... The layout of the Distribution Centre and specifically the dimensions and use of the pick bays was entirely a matter for Coles. The lack of access around the pallets clearly increased the risk of injury through overreaching. Her Honour erred in not having regard to the dangers associated with this lack of access and Coles' ability to remedy the situation."
Her Honour did have regard to this, at length, at pp 31-32 of her judgment, parts of which have been reproduced above. Her Honour was correct to state that there was no analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of a 400mm gap down the middle of the bay. It seems a very narrow gap for workers to step into. As mentioned above, it would appear to have the consequence that every single pallet unloaded each day would be hard against the vertical poles of the racking, and that presumably carried with it risks of damaging the pallets and the racking. There was no analysis of the risks or costs of this measure. Surely it is obvious that in a busy warehouse, with many, many fully laden pallets being deposited each day, no rational operator would instruct the forklift drivers to place the pallets hard adjacent to the structural pillars supporting the racking on the side of each bay. Surely one needs to undertake no analysis of the lateral strength of the poles to see that the suggestion carries with it risks of damage to the pallet and the racking.
This ground is not made out.

[48]

The trial judge erred in her treatment of the uncontroversial evidence that the height of the overhead rack precluded the worker obtaining clear access to the box in question.
First, the evidence was not uncontroversial. Mr Smith maintained until the end of the trial that the overhead racking was 1.7m high.
Secondly, since the overhead rack was 1.99m high, there was no difficulty with access to the box using a lift placing one foot on the pallet and leaving one foot on the floor of the aisle.
Thirdly, as noted above, it seems probable that the actual overhead clearance on all of the pallet save the edge underneath the beam exceeded 1.99m.

[49]

The trial judge erred in determining issues of liability based on various calculations and assessments of the evidence, set out at pages 22 to 24 of the judgment, which were unreliable, outside the evidence and not foreshadowed to the parties during the course of the trial.
This ground is not made out, for the reasons given in response to ground 11 of Mr Smith's appeal.

[50]

The trial judge erred in limiting the right of counsel for the worker to re-examine and/or refusing to allow counsel for the appellant to adduce further evidence from the worker.
Insofar as this ground is directed to the re-examination of Mr Smith by Mr Flett, it has been addressed above.
Insofar as this ground is directed to Mr Catsanos, the exchange giving rise to this ground of appeal occurred at pages 104-105 of the transcript. It was framed in terms of an application for leave to ask further questions in chief, although Ready Workforce had not called Mr Smith in its case. In the absence of the witness, there was this exchange: "CATSANOS: It just goes to this issue, your Honour, about the lifting technique that was used by the plaintiff, the worker on the day. He gave some evidence that it'd been used previously. He was cross-examined by my friend about his knowledge, et cetera, in relation to lifting technique. It'd be relevant, in my submission, for your Honour to have evidence from him about the frequency with which this occurred previously, to the extent that that isn't established, and I'd seek your Honour's-- HER HONOUR: Mr Parker. PARKER: I object to that. Having the exposed the - I'm sorry. Have you? CATSANOS: Well, your Honour, I'll wait until my friend takes his objection. PARKER: Having exposed the line of cross-examination that I posed, in my submission this would be unfair on the defendant to allow this. HER HONOUR: I think it's problematic, Mr Catsanos. We had two goes at this, and now you want to, in effect, change the case."
The exchange continued, but what has been reproduced above captures its flavour.
Ready Workforce contended, by reference to Urban Transport Authority of New South Wales v Nweiser (1992) 28 NSWLR 471 at 478, that the question was whether the interests of justice were better served by allowing or rejecting the application, and put that this was "acutely" relevant evidence. Let that be assumed. The question on appeal is whether there was House v The King error in the trial judge refusing the application for further cross-examination. It is quite plain that this was a dynamic trial, highly dependent upon what was said by the lay witnesses, not all of which could have been anticipated. I see no error in refusing further cross-examination from a party whose interest was relevantly identical to that of the plaintiff, whose cross-examination had been required to precede that of Coles, and who wished to undertake further cross-examination consequent upon that undertaken by Coles.

[51]

The trial judge erred in concluding that Coles 'on paper' system of work discharged its obligations to, in fact, provide the worker with a safe system of work.

[52]

The trial judge erred in failing to take proper account of the evidence that there was non-compliance with Coles 'on paper' system of work.

[53]

The trial judge erred in her treatment of the evidence that unsafe lifting had been undertaken by the worker and others in the workplace to the knowledge of the respondent.

[54]

The trial judge erred in her treatment of the evidence of the witnesses called for the respondent and in particular:

[55]

(a) Evidence establishing that the annual training review was inadequate.

[56]

(b) Evidence establishing that the risk of harm to the worker was a risk of which the respondent was aware.

[57]

(c) Evidence establishing that there were reasonably available precautions against the risk of harm suffered by the worker.

The written submissions of Ready Workforce were grouped in terms of topics rather than grounds. These grounds are specifically addressed in two places in the written submissions.
First, although there is a heading above paragraph 76 "The Bonus System and Coles' Knowledge of the Risk of Harm", the only submission made was that it was known that there would be workers who from time to time did not lift properly. That evidence was uncontroversial. It is important, and means that it is not sufficient for Coles, in order to defeat a claim of negligence, merely to have put in place a safe system. But that only leads to an inquiry as to what further precautions a reasonable person in the position of Coles would put in place.
Secondly, the submissions referred to the evidence that the yearly review of safe procedures took place only in a few minutes, and that the witness called by Coles did not conduct Mr Smith's review. A criticism was then advanced of the reasoning of the primary judge, insofar as it "ignored entirely the worker's unimpeached evidence that this review took less than 10 minutes". It was said that this "entirely ignores the objectives of review and re-training and bespeaks error in excusing yet another flaw in the Coles system". In oral submissions, it was said that the system provided by Coles "was really a lip service approach". Ready Workforce referred to the evidence that the annual review took about 5-10 minutes, or alternatively 10-15 minutes (this came from other witnesses; Mr Smith himself could not remember), and complained that "well in excess of half an hour" was required to discuss and reinforce the procedures in place.
But what turns on this? This criticism was made of page 13 of the 83 page judgment, when her Honour was summarising the evidence. No attack is made on the dispositive parts of the reasoning. Indeed, in this section of the reasons, her Honour stated: "The detail of the training and review system is somewhat academic in the circumstances. Mr Smith does not profess ignorance of the safe lifting instructions or his instructions. He knew the correct way to lift, as he said frankly in evidence ..."
If there is an error here, it was not material. Suppose the review had taken twice as long. The onus lay on Mr Smith to establish that that would have prevented his injury. There is no basis in the evidence for drawing any such conclusion.

[58]

Coles' appeal against Chandler Macleod

Coles has in fact filed two separate appeals against Chandler, which have been given file numbers of 2020/55981 and 2020/55990. Each is identical. Although separate judgments for nominal damages were entered, a single appeal would have sufficed, and, except when dealing with orders, I shall refer, for simplicity, to Coles' appeal (singular), which was the course followed in the parties' submissions, reflecting the fact that the second notice of appeal was not included in the Red Book. In this appeal brought by Coles against Chandler, the issue is very narrow.
Coles' cross-claims against Chandler were based on a service agreement between the two companies. Consistently with this Court's earlier decision between the same parties on the same contract in Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd v Ready Workforce (a Division of Chandler Macleod) Pty Ltd [2018] NSWCA 140 at [109], Coles' appeal did not extend to the rejection by the primary judge of Coles' claim for an indemnity from Chandler.
The remainder of the cross-claim was a claim for damages for breach of a contractual obligation upon Chandler and its subcontractors and their agents to comply with all reasonable directions of Coles and, when onsite, the OH&S requirements and any other reasonable on-site procedures (this was cl 3.2(b) and (c)). The primary judge found that Mr Smith's conduct in failing to adhere to directions was to be imputed to Ready Workforce and to Chandler, constituting a breach of the agreement.
Coles had contended that the irrecoverable costs incurred by it in defending the claims of Mr Smith and Ready Workforce were damages it could recover for the breach of the agreement. It tendered no evidence of its actual costs or of its likely partial recovery.
Her Honour awarded nominal damages of $100 on the basis that Coles had not established any loss caused by that breach. Her Honour said: "There is no speculation in concluding that costs and expenses have been incurred in defending the proceedings brought by the respective plaintiffs, or in finding that such costs are far from nominal where a party retains a competent solicitor, senior counsel, a qualified expert (who makes no qualifying disclosure under Uniform Civil Procedure Rule 31.22); calls witnesses; and engages in a four-day hearing. However, the cross-claimant led no evidence as to the quantification of its legal costs on any basis."

[59]

Orders

I propose that each of the appeals brought by Mr Smith, Ready Workforce and Coles (in the case of Coles, both 2020/55981 and 2020/55990) should be dismissed. As presently advised, costs of each appeal should follow the event. If there is a basis for some different order, application may be made within the period specified by UCPR r 36.16.

[60]

Annexure "A"

Particulars of Coles' negligence as alleged by Mr Smith. "(a) Failed to devise, institute or maintain a safe system of work. (b) Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, caused or permitted a system of manual lifting to persist wherein workers were required to lean across to the back of pallets to lift items well away from the position they were reasonably able to place their feet, thus creating an excessive ergonomic strain upon the body whilst manually lifting. (c) Failed to provide any or adequate training, instruction, or induction to the plaintiff. (d) Failed to provide any or adequate supervision of the Plaintiff. (e) Failed to warn the Plaintiff that he was in a position of peril, when the Defendant knew, or ought to have known that the Plaintiff was in peril. (f) Failed to conduct any or adequate inspection of the Premises to identify and eliminate the risk that materialised, namely the hazardous manual lifting process being undertaken by the Plaintiff. (g) Failed to provide a safe place of work, and proper and appropriate lifting equipment. (h) Failed to maintain the standard of workplace safety required of an employer and person controlling a worksite under the provisions of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) and Regulations; (i) Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, by failing to identify and eliminate the risks in manual handling the Defendant breached WHS legislation and associated publications, namely The Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice published by Safe Work Australia in December 2011 (which is an approved Code of Practice under s.274 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011), together with Part 3.1 & CI. 60 of the WH&S Regs 2011 (which relate to managing risks to health and safety) and Part 4.3 of the WHS Regulations 'Confined Spaces'. (j) Failed to comply with Part 2, Div 2 & 3 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) by failing to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of the Plaintiff and in particular, failing to ensure that the system of work and the working environment of the Plaintiff was safe and without risk to health, and failing to provide information, structure, training and/or supervision as was necessary to ensure the Plaintiff's health and safety at work. (k) Failed to comply with Part 2, Div 2 & 3 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) by: • failing to take any/or reasonable care to identify foreseeable hazards arising from the conduct of the Defendant's undertaking which had the potential to cause harm to the health or safety of the Plaintiff. • failing to identify hazards arising from work practices and work systems. • failing to ensure that any/or any effective procedures were in place and were implemented to identify hazards while work was being carried out. • failing to assess the risk of harm to the health or safety of persons lawfully engaged upon a worksite which they controlled. • failing to eliminate any reasonably foreseeable risk to the health or safety of persons lawfully engaged upon a worksite which they controlled. • failing to provide reasonable supervision necessary to ensure health and safety [of] workers on the building site. (I) Required workers including the Plaintiff to perform excessive hours of heavy and/or repetitive lifting without adequate rest, and under deadline or time pressure, such as to increase the risk of injury which materialised. (m) Res Ipsa Loquitur."

[61]

Annexure "B"

Ready Workforce's particulars of negligence, which corresponded to Coles' particulars of contributory negligence. "The Worker's Injuries occurred as a result of the negligence of the defendant. Particulars of Negligence (a) Failure to provide the Worker with a safe place of work. (b) Failure to devise a safe system of work. (c) Failure to carry out proper risk assessments. (d) Failure to implement a safe system of work. (e) Requiring the Worker to adopt unsafe practices in the course of his duties. (f) Requiring the Worker to adopt unsafe ergonomic positions in the course. (g) Failing to ensure that the Worker did not adopt unsafe ergonomic positions in the course of his duties. (h) Failure to adequately train the Worker. (i) Failure to adequately induct the Worker. (j) Failure to adequately control work and system of work at the Premises to ensure that the Worker and his co-workers perform their duties in a safe manner. (k) Failure to adequately supervise the Worker and his co-workers. (I) Failure to guard the worker. (m) Failure to identify hazards in the workplace. (n) Failure to discharge its duties under the Work Health and Safety Act and the Regulations thereto. (o) Failure to comply with its duties in relation to work health and safety under the Agreement. (p) Failing to provide the Worker with adequate rest breaks. (q) Failing to provide the worker with adequate task rotation."
EMMETT AJA: These three appeals arise out of an injury to his back suffered on 10 May 2014 by the appellant in two of the appeals, Mr Matthew Smith (the Worker), when he leant forward to lift a carton containing bottles of water from the back of a pallet in the course of his duties while working as a picker/packer at the distribution centre operated by Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd (Coles) at Smeaton Grange (the Premises). Coles is the respondent in the two appeals brought by Mr Smith and the appellant in the third appeal. The respondent in the third appeal is Chandler Macleod Group Limited (Chandler).
The Worker sued Coles in the District Court of New South Wales. The Worker was entitled to workers' compensation from his employer, Ready Workforce (A Division of Chandler Macleod) Pty Ltd (Ready Workforce), a related corporation of Chandler. Ready Workforce also sued Coles in the District Court for recovery of the workers' compensation paid to the Worker pursuant to s 151Z of the Workers Compensation Act 1987 (NSW). In addition, Coles sued Chandler in cross-claims filed in the actions brought by the Worker and Ready Workforce. The cross-claims against Chandler were based on a service agreement between Coles and Chandler. Coles contended that any liability it incurred to Mr Smith or Ready Workforce, including the irrecoverable costs it incurred in defending each action, was either the subject of a contractual indemnity, or else was recoverable as damages for a breach of a contract.

[62]

The evidence at trial

The evidence established the following. The depot operated by Coles at Smeaton Grange was very large. Grocery merchandise was delivered to, and distributed from, the depot in order to fulfil orders. Merchandise was "picked" from pallets which were located on the floor of the warehouse and packed before being sent out of the depot. There were several shelves higher than the ground floor on which merchandise was stored before it was required to be moved to the ground floor to be available to pickers. The shelves above the pick bays were fixed at a particular height. Those working at the Coles depot included Coles employees as well as those who were employed by labour-hire companies such as Ready, who had been sent to the depot to work under Coles' direction. Ready also had representatives at the Coles depot.
Mr Smith worked as a casual "picker/packer" which required him to drive a forklift, which took two pallets, around the warehouse, collecting grocery items from locations in the warehouse to fulfil orders which had been allocated to him. His instructions were given to him by a headset. His productivity was measured and, if he exceeded a specified rate, would give rise to a bonus. Failure to achieve the specified rate had the potential to jeopardise his prospects of continued employment. His evidence as to the speed of work included the following: "Q. What can you tell us about the pace that you were working that day? A. Working at a - a fast pace. So, you know, in order to keep up with your time. … Q. … Can you describe to us what you mean by that? A. So you're attempting to reach, or pick up - pick every box up with a, you know, within a - a moment of - you know, within a few seconds. Q. Why were you attempting to work at that sort of speed? A. So you main - maintain your performance average, and then so you can - you earn the extra dollars in a - for a bonus. Q. Were those dollars important to you? A. Yes. Q. Was earning a bonus important to you? A. Yes. Q. Did that affect the speed at which you tried to work? A. Yes. Q. And in what way did it affect the speed? A. So you - you'd be working, you know, at a more timely manner to complete the task. Q. Were there any other factors that caused you to work quickly? A. So if - if I was to slow down, congestion would start to build behind me. You've got other forklifts operating waiting to put stock away. You've got other pickers behind you, waiting to pick, you know, from the same locations that are around you."

[63]

Mr Smith's and Ready's cases at trial

In substance, Mr Smith's case at trial was that the duties owed to him by Coles were analogous to those owed by an employer to an employee. He alleged that his injury was caused by Coles' negligence in failing to provide a safe system of work.
In support of their cases at trial, Ready and Mr Smith relied on the principle from the well-known passage in Czatyrko v Edith Cowan University [2005] HCA 14; (2005) 79 ALJR 839 (Czatyrko) at [12] as follows: "An employer owes a non-delegable duty of care to its employees to take reasonable care to avoid exposing them to unnecessary risks of injury. If there is a real risk of an injury to an employee in the performance of a task in a workplace, the employer must take reasonable care to avoid the risk by devising a method of operation for the performance of the task that eliminates the risk, or by the provision of adequate safeguards. The employer must take into account the possibility of thoughtlessness, or inadvertence, or carelessness, particularly in a case of repetitive work."
The cases put by Ready and Mr Smith at trial were that the combination of the height of the shelf above the picking bay, the broken slat in the pallet and the location of the box at the back of the pallet from which the only access was from the front, was such as to create an unnecessary risk of injury. They argued that Coles was obliged to take reasonable care to avoid the risk by devising a method of operation for the lifting of items from pallets which eliminated the risk that poor access to an item would affect the capacity of a worker such as Mr Smith to pick it up using safe techniques.
Ready and Mr Smith put at trial that Coles could have obviated the risk which ensued when Mr Smith lifted the box by providing pick sticks to workers to assist them to move boxes and other items from the back of the pallet to the front of the pallet. They submitted that such an aid was a reasonable precaution in circumstances which included that the height of the rack above the pallet did not permit all workers to stand upright and broken slats were commonplace. Other precautions were also put but need not be considered for present purposes.

[64]

Coles' case at trial

Coles' case at trial was that it had discharged its duty of care by training its workers, including Mr Smith, in safe methods of lifting, that the cause of Mr Smith's injuries was that he had lifted the box in an improper and unsafe manner and that he had not been sufficiently close to the box when he attempted to lift it. Coles submitted that if the box was positioned in a location where Mr Smith could not lift it in accordance with one of the approved methods which he had been instructed to undertake, he should simply have left the box on the pallet. Coles submitted, on this basis, that Mr Smith was the cause of his own injuries and that he had no entitlement to damages against Coles and that Ready had no entitlement to indemnity under s 151Z(1)(d) of the Workers Compensation Act.

[65]

Whether Mr Smith could rely on the non-provision of pick sticks

At trial, Mr Parker submitted that Mr Smith could not raise the non-provision of pick sticks because it had not been pleaded. In response, Mr Catsanos SC, who appeared for Ready at trial and on appeal, submitted that it was covered by the pleading in that it fell within the allegation that Coles had failed to provide a safe system of work. Mr Catsanos also said that Coles had raised the issue of pick sticks in its manual and Mr Parker had cross-examined about it. Both experts had given opinions about the difference pick sticks would have made. In these circumstances, he submitted that the plaintiff was entitled to rely on the non-provision of pick sticks as part of his case.

[66]

Liability

The primary judge accepted that the duties owed by Coles to Mr Smith to provide a safe system of work were similar to those owed by an employer and accepted that the statements of principle in Czatyrko applied to the present case. Her Honour said, of the risk which Coles had a duty to eliminate or minimise: "Plainly there was a not insignificant risk that was foreseeable in that Coles (or any employer) knew or ought to have known, such that a reasonable person in the employer's position would have taken precautions against unsafe or improper or 'unergonomic' manual handling/lifting. In the circumstances that is not particularly controversial."
The primary judge engaged in a calculation whereby her Honour purported to work out how far Mr Smith reached before picking up the carton. This calculation is the subject of ground 11 of Mr Smith's notice of appeal. Her Honour said when describing her own reckonings: "The back of the carton was obviously about the pallet width from the front of [the] pallet. The broken board cannot have been the 15cm lead board. If that was in front of his foot, he would not have put a foot on the pallet at all. If his ordinary stepping distance was in the order of 53cm as Dr Fairfax calculated, it is likely that Mr Smith would have stepped over a breakage in the first few boards. It is unlikely that it was one of the first few boards that was broken, leaving Mr Smith having stepped some way onto [the] pallet before his foot approached a broken board of about 9.5cm wide but some (uncertain) distance into the pallet that prevented him from getting the foot that was on the pallet any closer to the carton. His forward reach across the 1.165m pallet was reduced correspondingly."
The primary judge, after quoting from the evidence, said further: "If the distance measured is the forward reach, 90cm is equally unrealistic. If that were so, with his foot on the pallet Mr Smith's torso was about 26cm into the 116.5cm pallet, i.e., on the first 9.5cm board past 15cm lead board and no further forward than approaching the near edge of the third board of the pallet. If the second or third board were the one broken it is inherently unlikely that Mr Smith would not have simply stepped over it. Mr Smith's estimate of reaching about 90cm is unrealistic even if the reach was not purely forwards in direction. It is longer than Dr Fairfax estimated was possible, having calculated his reach at the time is about two feet (say 60-61cm), as he stood with one foot some distance onto the pallet. That measurement gives little guidance as to either the position of Mr Smith's foot on the pallet or the distance of the carton from his torso. Mr Smith's measurement was to where he had placed his hands underneath the 30 or 31cm tall box. On Dr Fairfax's calculations the diagonal of the carton was about 38cm (exhibit 5, paragraph 91, footnote 55, and it might be slightly longer on Mr Dubos' figures), which is roughly half the reach. The base of the carton sat about 15cm above the ground (on the pallet). When the 1.82m tall Mr Smith was standing stooped, with one foot on the pallet Mr Smith's shoulders were about 150cm above the ground on Dr Fairfax's calculations (exhibit 5, paragraph 79), and less above the top of the pallet. The distance of the carton from Mr Smith's torso is effectively the hypotenuse of the distance from his stooped shoulders to the pallet surface (the base of the carton) and forward to the carton. Allowing for stooping/leaning and bending of his back, the distance of the carton from Mr Smith's torso rests on speculation about angles and triangular calculations about which I do not conjecture."

[67]

Damages

The primary judge assessed the damages to which Mr Smith would have been entitled had Coles been found liable at $414,909. She found that Ready was 50% liable for the damages and said that she would have reduced Mr Smith's damages against Coles accordingly had Coles been liable. There is no challenge to these findings.

[68]

The grounds of appeal raised by Ready and Mr Smith

Both Ready and Mr Smith have raised a large number of grounds of appeal, which can be divided into two categories: first, those which challenge findings of fact and application of legal principles to findings; and, second, those which raised matters of procedural fairness. The grounds in the second category include Mr Smith's ground 11 which is: "The judge erred in not raising with appellant that she was considering finding the calculations at pages 22-24 of her judgment, denying the appellant a reasonable opportunity to respond."
Ready's ground 14, which also falls into the second category, is as follows: "The trial judge erred in limiting the right of counsel for the worker to re-examine and/or refusing to allow counsel for the appellant to adduce further evidence from the worker."
In the usual course, this Court would address grounds alleging a denial of procedural fairness first and, if any such ground is made out, would order a new trial. When such an order is made, it is generally inappropriate for this Court otherwise to consider the judgment under appeal since there would be, on that scenario, a new trial. However, in the present case, Mr Catsanos and Mr Cranitch SC, who appeared with Mr Wathukarage and Dr Blount for Mr Smith, contended that, if this Court was otherwise minded to allow the appeal on liability, they did not press their application for a new trial on the grounds of procedural fairness.
In these circumstances, I propose to turn to the first category of grounds: those which allege that the primary judge failed to address the case that was put by Mr Smith and Ready or which challenge the factual findings of the primary judge and her application of legal principle. These grounds comprise all 15 grounds, apart from ground 14, in Ready's notice of appeal, and grounds 1-6, 8-10 and 12-14 in Mr Smith's notice of appeal.
At the hearing of the appeals, none of the parties sought to address the grounds individually. Each counsel made global submissions which paid no particular attention to the grounds as formulated. This approach was understandable given the matters at issue in the proceedings and on appeal. At the conclusion of the hearing, Leeming JA, the presiding judge, asked the parties whether it was necessary for this Court to address each and every ground or whether the parties were content for the Court to address the matters of substance, in accordance with the way the parties had conducted the hearing of the appeal. The parties confirmed that this approach was both acceptable and appropriate.

[69]

The challenge to her Honour's factual findings and the finding that Coles was not negligent

Ready and Mr Smith accepted that her Honour had correctly recited the applicable legal principle from Czatyrko. However, they contended that the primary judge had failed to deal with the cases they had put. They contended that it was common ground that Mr Smith had attempted to lift the box in a way which was at odds with his training and that it was dangerous in itself but submitted that the primary judge had failed to address their cases that it was the difficulties in access which created the very risk which ensued. In other words, they alleged that the primary judge failed to deal with why Mr Smith had lifted the box incorrectly.
I accept this submission. The primary judge appeared to consider, erroneously, that Coles was absolved from liability because Mr Smith had lifted the box in a way which exposed him to risk of injury because he reached for it when he lifted it, rather than having it close to his feet at the time he began to lift it. As Czatyrko makes clear, the relevant inquiry is whether, to borrow its language, Coles, taking into account the possibility of thoughtlessness, inadvertence, or carelessness on the part of a worker such as Mr Smith, had devised a method of operation for performing the task of lifting items from a pallet which would avoid the risk that the worker would lift in a sub-optimal way by reason of the difficulties posed in gaining access to a box at the rear of a pallet in which one of the slats was damaged. The primary judge failed to undertake this inquiry. Once her Honour had determined that the cause of the injury was the poor lifting technique, she decided that Coles was not liable. Thus, her Honour failed to carry out the task of determining the issues between the parties or addressing the case that had been put by Ready and Mr Smith.
I am persuaded that this error permeated the whole of her Honour's judgment and the reasons for her decision that Coles was not liable in negligence to Mr Smith or liable under s 151Z(2) to Ready.

[70]

Whether Coles is liable to Mr Smith and Ready

Error having been established, it falls to this Court to exercise the powers conferred on it by s 75A of the Supreme Court Act 1970 (NSW) to determine whether Coles is liable to Mr Smith and Ready.

[71]

The case based on the absence of pick sticks

Mr Parker argued on appeal that it was not open to this Court to allow the appeal on the basis of Mr Smith's case on pick sticks because no such case had been pleaded; and that as Mr Smith had not given evidence that he would have used a pick stick had one been provided to him, Mr Smith had not established causation and therefore his and Ready's claims had to fail in any event.

[72]

Whether the case based on the absence of pick sticks was outside the pleadings

It is necessary to deal with the pleading point at the outset. Ready alleged that Mr Smith's injuries "occurred as a result of the negligence of the defendant". The following particulars of negligence are relevant and, in my view, are sufficient to comprehend Ready's case that the failure to provide pick sticks materially caused the accident: "(a) Failure to provide the Worker with a safe place of work. (b) Failure to devise a safe system of work. … (d) Failure to implement a safe system of work. (e) Requiring the Worker to adopt unsafe practices in the course of his duties. (f) Requiring the Worker to adopt unsafe ergonomic positions in the course [of his duties]. (g) Failing to ensure that the Worker did not adopt unsafe ergonomic positions in the course of his duties. … (j) Failure to adequately control work and system of work at the Premises to ensure that the Worker and his co-workers perform their duties in a safe manner. …"
Mr Smith also alleged that his injuries, loss and damage were caused by Coles' negligence. The relevant particulars to his case on the failure to provide pick sticks included the following: "(a) Failed to devise, institute or maintain a safe system of work. (b) Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, caused or permitted a system of manual lifting to persist wherein workers were required to lean across to the back of pallets to lift items well away from the position they were reasonably able to place their feet, thus creating an excessive ergonomic strain upon the body whilst manually lifting. … (f) Failed to conduct any or adequate inspection of the Premises to identify and eliminate the risk that materialised, namely the hazardous manual lifting process being undertaken by the Plaintiff. (g) Failed to provide a safe place of work, and proper and appropriate lifting equipment. …"
None of these particulars is inconsistent with, or sufficient to exclude, the case based on the absence of pick sticks. In R v Associated Northern Collieries (1910) 11 CLR 738 at 740-741; [1910] HCA 61 Isaacs J said: "I take the fundamental principle to be that the opposite party shall always be fairly apprised of the nature of the case he is called upon to meet, shall be placed in possession of its broad outlines and the constitutive facts which are said to raise his legal liability. He is to receive sufficient information to ensure a fair trial and to guard against what the law terms 'surprise,' but he is not entitled to be told the mode by which the case is to be proved against him."

[73]

Whether Ready and Mr Smith have established that the absence of pick sticks was negligent

The Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW) applies. The relevant risk of harm was the risk of workers suffering a back injury from lifting an article incorrectly because of difficulties with access. The risk was plainly foreseeable (s 5B(1)(a)) and was in fact foreseen, as was evident from the Coles manual and the training of workers which it undertook. The risk was not insignificant and indeed was a substantial one (s 5B(1)(b)). The risk was exacerbated by the known occurrence of broken slats and the circumstance that some workers, including Mr Smith, could not stand upright on the pallet to do a squat lift because the rack above the lowest level was only 199cms from the ground. Because the pallet was 15cms high and the work boots added about 4cms to a worker's height, a proportion of the workers at the depot would fall into this category. I infer that a reasonable person in the position of Coles would have been obliged to take reasonable precautions against such risk of harm.
In determining whether a reasonable person would have taken precautions against the risk of harm, the court is to consider the matters listed in s 5B(2) of the Civil Liability Act. I am satisfied that it was probable that, if precautions were not taken, workers at the depot would suffer injury if difficulties in access to items which had to be lifted were not ameliorated (s 5B(2)(a)). I am also satisfied that such injury was likely to be serious (s 5B(2)(b)). I infer that the burden of taking precautions to avoid the risk of harm (s 5B(2)(c)) was not particularly great as the Coles manual mandated the use of pick sticks by workers whenever "overreaching for stock" would otherwise be required to retrieve an item from a pallet. Further, Mr Dubos' evidence established that pick sticks were available and in use when he visited the depot in 2017. The social utility of the activity (s 5B(2)(d) of the Civil Liability Act) is not a limiting factor in the present case as the activity was part of a commercial operation conducted by Coles for a profit.
It is not necessary to address each of the measures which Ready and Mr Smith contended would have avoided the risk since it was common ground that the provision of pick sticks would have done so. The Coles manual (as the case was conducted, see further below) provided for the use of pick sticks in the very circumstances which confronted Mr Smith before he performed the dangerous lift. Accordingly, I infer that the provision of pick sticks was a reasonable precaution that ought to have been taken by Coles as part of the duty which it owed to those persons whose labour had been provided for work on the site. As referred to above, this inference is fortified by the circumstance that there were pick sticks available when Mr Dubos visited the site in December 2017, which also shows that it was reasonable for them to have been provided earlier, when Mr Smith was working at the depot.

[74]

Whether Ready and Mr Smith have established that the absence of pick sticks caused Mr Smith's injuries

As referred to above, Mr Parker submitted that this Court ought not infer that, had a pick stick been provided for the use of persons such as Mr Smith, he would have used it, there being no direct evidence to that effect. He submitted that the lack of such evidence was fatal to the appeals by Ready and Mr Smith. I disagree for the following reasons.
The question whether Mr Smith would have used a pick stick had it been provided is a hypothetical one since the evidence established that it was not. The proof of causation in such a case requires the tribunal of fact to be satisfied that he would have used a pick stick to move the box closer to him before he engaged in lifting it. In Glass, McHugh and Douglas, The Liability of Employers in Damages for Personal Injury (2nd ed, 1979, Law Book Co.), the authors addressed this situation at 39 in the following terms: "The problem has been dealt with in two cases in England, each of which involved the use of safety belts to prevent falls from a height which had proved fatal. The House of Lords in each case found for the defendant by adopting a finding of fact made below that the deceased would not have used the belt. Such finding was based upon positive evidence adduced by the employer concerning the habits of the deceased. There is no principle of law to be deduced that if the question is untouched by evidence on either side as to whether the safety equipment would or would not have been used, the case is defective on the issue of causation. On the contrary it would appear that in the absence of evidence there is a presumption of fact operating in favour of the plaintiff. 'It may, however, be said that where the employer is in breach of his duty, there is in that fact some prima facie evidence of a causal connection between the breach and the subsequent damage'. 'But proof need not be by direct evidence. If general practice or a regulation requires that some safety appliance shall be provided, one would assume that it is of some use, and that a reasonable man would use it. And one would assume that the injured man was a reasonable man.' The failure of the plaintiff to use safety gear provided by the defendant brings different principles into play." [Footnotes omitted.]
The common law principles have been amended by s 5D(3) of the Civil Liability Act, which applies to actions commenced on or after 6 December 2002, and which provides: "(3) If it is relevant to the determination of factual causation to determine what the person who suffered harm would have done if the negligent person had not been negligent - (a) the matter is to be determined subjectively in the light of all relevant circumstances, subject to paragraph (b), and (b) any statement made by the person after suffering the harm about what he or she would have done is inadmissible except to the extent (if any) that the statement is against his or her interest."

[75]

Whether Coles has established that there should be a deduction for contributory negligence

The remaining issue on the appeals by Ready and Mr Smith is the question of contributory negligence. As Coles is at fault, I do not consider that s 5S of the Civil Liability Act applies. Coles bears the onus of proving contributory negligence: Anderson v Eric Radio & TV Pty Ltd (1965) 114 CLR 20 at 43 (Windeyer J); [1965] HCA 61 and Joslyn v Berryman (2003) 214 CLR 552; [2003] HCA 34 at [18] (McHugh J). By reason of s 5R of the Civil Liability Act, the same principles apply in determining whether a person has been negligent as they do when determining whether the person who suffered harm has been contributorily negligent in failing to take precautions against the risk of that harm. The standard of care, for this purpose, is objective and to be determined on the basis of what the person knew or ought to have known at the time.
The context of the work being performed by Mr Smith is highly relevant. In Commissioner of Railways v Ruprecht (1979) 142 CLR 563; [1979] HCA 37, it was held that, in considering contributory negligence, it was necessary to have regard to the nature of the work which was being performed in order to assess the significance of the employee's conduct. Gibbs J (Stephen J agreeing) said at 568: "[I]n deciding whether the [employee] was guilty of contributory negligence, one may consider, as part of all the circumstances, such things as inattention born of familiarity and repetition, and the man's preoccupation with the matter in hand."
Mason J said at 572 that "... the existence of an unsafe system of work increases the risk of injury to an employee through his inadvertence." Statements to similar effect were made in McLean v Tedman (1984) 155 CLR 306 at 315-316; [1984] HCA 60 (Mason, Wilson, Brennan and Dawson JJ).
The question is whether Mr Smith's conduct showed an unreasonable lack of care for his own safety. The answer to this question depends in part on the practical alternatives open to him. His evidence extracted above, which I accept, was that it was not reasonably open to him to simply leave the item on the pallet and leave the order unfulfilled since this would affect Coles' assessment of his work performance, make it less likely that he would obtain a bonus for his pick rate and potentially subject him to a reprimand. There was substantial pressure on him to fulfil the orders which had been allocated to him. Although Mr Smith appreciated that he was not lifting the box in accordance with the way that he had been taught, he did not discern that there was any alternative to what he in fact did, which was to reach across the broken slat and lift the box. I do not consider that he was inadvertent or that he was not paying attention. However, I consider that he was so focussed on the task in hand and the pressure on him as a picker/packer to fulfil his orders for the day, that it was reasonable for him to consider that he had no practical choice but to pick up the box in whatever way he could manage to lift it. The insufficient height of the rack above, the broken slat and the absence of an aid such as a pick stick were each matters for which Coles was responsible and which impeded the safe performance of his work. Mr Smith had been well-trained and can be taken to have been diligent and hard-working. His injury was caused by matters outside his control.

[76]

The appeal by Coles against the judgment on its cross-claim against Chandler

Mr Cheshire SC, who appeared on behalf of Chandler, did not challenge her Honour's judgment on the cross-claim or the assessment of nominal damages of $100. Mr Parker, however, challenged the assessment of damages and contended that her Honour ought to have assessed Coles' damages by reference to the amount of costs which Coles had expended in the proceedings. Before turning to the grounds of the appeal, I propose to address the terms of the agreement between Coles and Chandler.

[77]

The agreement between Coles and Chandler

The agreement, which is entitled "Services Agreement" has two parties: Coles and Chandler. The latter is defined as "Service Provider". The commercial purpose of the agreement is to govern the provision by Chandler of labour to Coles. Of present relevance, cl 1.1 of the agreement contains the following defined terms: "Agency Personnel means a candidate whom Coles has selected to perform an Assignment; … Assignment means the specific work assignment and related services to be performed by the Agency Personnel for Coles; ... Services means the supply of recruitment services for temporary labour by the Service Provider to Coles and any services incidental to those services or to the performance of the service provider's obligations under this agreement. The parties acknowledge that despite any other provision in this Agreement, supplied temporary labour will be under Coles direction and supervision and that the Service Provider is not responsible for the work done by the temporary labour supplied by it, or the end-products of that work."
It was common ground that the definition of "Sites" included the Smeaton Grange depot.
Clause 3, entitled "Services", relevantly provides: "3.1 Engagement of Service Provider Coles engages the Service Provider as an independent contractor on a non-exclusive basis, as an employment agency to provide Coles with the services of casual staff who are employed or contracted by the Service Provider. 3.2 Compliance In providing the Services the Service Provider must comply with: … (b) all reasonable directions of Coles; (c) when on the Sites, the OH&S Requirements and any other reasonable on-site procedures; …"
Clause 13, entitled "Indemnities", relevantly provided: "13.1 Indemnities The Service Provider releases and indemnifies Coles in respect of any loss, damages, claims, expenses (including legal costs on a solicitor and own client basis) that may be suffered or incurred by Coles, directly in connection with: (a) the failure by the Service Provider and/or the Agency Personnel to perform any of its obligations under the terms of this Agreement; (b) any breach by the Service Provider and/or the Agency Personnel of any provision of this Agreement; (c) any breach of warranty or negligence or other claim with respect to goods and services sold or provided by Service Provider and/or the Agency Personnel; … (f) any negligent act or omission or wilful misconduct of the Service Provider or its employees, agents or Subcontractors and/or the Agency Personnel in connection with this Agreement; or … except to the extent that the loss is directly attributable to the negligence or wrongful act or omission of Coles. 13.2 Inclusions The Indemnity set out in clause 13.1includes an indemnity in connection with: … (b) the injury to or death of any person; and …"

[78]

Proposed orders

For the reasons set out above, I propose the following orders: In CA 2019/298538 (Smith v Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd t/as Coles Distribution Centre) 1. Allow the appeal. 2. Set aside the judgment of Gibb DCJ ordered on 25 September 2019 and in lieu thereof, order judgment for the plaintiff. 3. Order the respondent to pay the appellant's costs of the trial and of the appeal. In CA 2019/297428 (Ready Workforce (A Division of Chandler Macleod) Pty Limited v Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd) 1. Allow the appeal. 2. Set aside the judgment of Gibb DCJ ordered on 25 September 2019 and in lieu thereof, order judgment for the plaintiff. 3. Order the respondent to pay the appellant's costs of the trial and of the appeal. In CA 2020/55981 and CA 2020/55990 (Coles Supermarkets Australia v Chandler Macleod Group Ltd) 1. Dismiss the appeal. 2. Order the appellant to pay the respondent's costs of the appeal.
I note that it was common ground that if Ready succeeded, the fact that it may have been a joint tortfeasor did not preclude or limit its entitlement to recovery, having regard to s 151Z(1) and (2) of the Workers Compensation Act. However, since the calculation of the monetary sums of the judgments is not obvious from the court books, I propose that the parties be directed to bring in short minutes which reflect the judgment sums which follow from these reasons.

[79]

DISCLAIMER - Every effort has been made to comply with suppression orders or statutory provisions prohibiting publication that may apply to this judgment or decision. The onus remains on any person using material in the judgment or decision to ensure that the intended use of that material does not breach any such order or provision. Further enquiries may be directed to the Registry of the Court or Tribunal in which it was generated. Decision last updated: 04 September 2020

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