The loading procedure nobody on the bay was trained on

The procedure for loading and unloading sat in writing. On the morning that mattered, it was not what people in the forklift zone were working to.

On 17 March 2026, the Industrial Court of NSW sentenced a company to a $450,000 fine after a worker was seriously injured when struck by a forklift. SafeWork NSW published the result on 20 March. The company is named in the sources below. This piece is about the procedure, not the firm.

What the court put on the record

The incident happened on 10 October 2022 at a sales and distribution branch with a warehouse, an office, and an open yard used for loading and unloading trucks. A forklift was moving a steel garage roller door toward a truck. A junior worker was walking between the front of the forklift and the load, steadying the door by hand as the machine travelled forward.

The forklift gained ground, caught the back of the worker's foot, knocked them down, and ran over a leg and foot. The injuries were serious. Multiple surgeries followed.

The judgment noted published Safe Work Australia forklift guidance available at the time: most forklift incidents involve pedestrians, and businesses should keep clear, separate pathways for people and plant.

Which control failed

The company had a written Safe Work Procedure for loading and unloading vehicles. The court found it was not adequately implemented or enforced. On the agreed facts, the SWP had not been provided to workers at that site. Workers in the zone, including the forklift operator and the junior worker, had not been trained on it. The junior worker was not experienced or trained for work in close proximity to the forklift.

The document existed. It never reached the people in the zone, and nobody there had been trained on it. A junior without the experience or training for work close to a forklift was walking in the plant path.

SafeWork NSW's release said the controls for moving plant are well known and that being hit by moving plant is preventable.

After the incident, the site revised the SWP and added working procedures that included a two-metre clearance zone for people on foot around mobile plant. That is useful remediation. It came after the injury.

What evidence would have shown the control was working

If you walk a warehouse or distribution site tomorrow, ask whether you can produce, for the people in the forklift zone that morning, something like this:

Live SWP for that loading method. The version that covers how doors, pallets, or jib-slung loads move from yard to truck on this site, with clearance and spotting rules for people on foot.

Training evidence for the people in the zone. Names, dates, and the procedure they were trained against. If the SWP was never handed over, there is nothing to open.

A supervision gate for juniors and new-to-task workers. Who decided this person could walk ahead of a loaded forklift to steady a load? What induction or buddy sign-off sat under that call? The court treated youth, inexperience, and a wholly inadequate safety system as part of the seriousness of the matter.

A named owner for loading and mobile-plant risk on that site. Someone who can change layout, roster, and stop work when the zone is wrong.

Review after change. New labour-hire intake, layout change, near miss, or a new starter on trial in the warehouse should trigger a check that the controls still match the faces on the floor.

None of that requires a prosecution file. It requires records you can produce the next day without rebuilding the story from CCTV and memory.

How this shows up on a site walk

Start at the loading face, not the shared drive. Watch one truck cycle. Ask who is allowed inside the plant path, and what stops a junior from stepping in to "help" a swinging load. Ask for the SWP that matches this method. Then ask for the training record of the two people closest to the forks.

The usual gap: the procedure exists, the training folder is empty for the people on shift, and nobody owns the gate that keeps inexperienced feet out of the forklift line.

Host, labour-hire, and contractor arrangements make that gap worse when each party assumes the other trained the junior. Write down who decides whether a new worker can enter the plant path, and when that was last checked.

Limits

This draws only on the SafeWork NSW release and the published judgment. It is not legal advice, and it does not say every site with a written SWP is non-compliant.

If you want loading and plant risks, owners and follow-up actions in one place, you can request a demo.

Sources

• SafeWork NSW: Company fined $450,000 after worker injured in forklift incident (20 March 2026)
• SafeWork NSW v Steel-Line Garage Doors Australia Pty Ltd [2026] NSWIC 7 (Industrial Court of NSW; sentence 17 March 2026, conviction recorded 10 February 2026; agreed facts on SWP, training, and incident)