When Brooke Hampton was handed the reins of an automotive repair company by her grandfather, she adopted the unsafe practices of its employees including 96-hour straight on-call shifts.
The shift pattern had been devised by John Halls and his fellow roadside assistance driver, who worked under a contract with RACV to provide emergency assistance to broken down drivers.
On March 10, 2018 Mr Halls was 89 hours into a four-day shift and had worked 17 hours straight since his first callout the previous day.
He was visibly tired when he drove a motorist home, rather than leave them stranded on the side of a deserted country road in the Yarra Junction-Healesville area in the early hours of the morning.
Mr Halls was headed home after that call but never made it.
He fell asleep at the wheel and his car hit a tree at 100km/h, killing him.
His employer, YJ Auto Repairs, was on Wednesday convicted and fined $115,000 for breaches of workplace health and safety laws, including not having policies and procedures in place to protect employees from fatigue-related risks.
Ms Hampton became director of the company, one of several automotive repair businesses operated by her grandfather, in late 2017.
She had been at the helm for just three months when Mr Halls was killed.
County Court Judge Marcus Dempsey said RACV - the Goliath to YJ Auto Repairs' David - had the overarching obligation to provide the necessary training to ensure business performed on their part was done safely.
RACV was previous fined $475,000 over Mr Halls' death.
Its breaches were particularly egregious, Judge Dempsey said, noting it provided advice on its own website about the significant hazards posed by fatigued drivers.
Failing to apply the same advice to its own staff and contractors was a gross dereliction of their duty of care, he said.
But he said that didn't mean YJ Auto Repairs, which hasn't operated since 2019 and was only re-registered to allow prosecution, was blameless.
That company's breach of the laws was borne out of neglect to examine already established practices, he said.
"I do not find it acted with indifference, but out of lack of experience and taking comfort, I suspect, in the continuation of the established status quo," Judge Dempsey said.
For about a year before his death Mr Halls and the company's other roadside assistance driver had worked the alternating 96-hour straight roster that they had devised themselves.
If one was sick or took holidays, the other covered, Judge Dempsey said, calling it a system of work that beggars belief.
The grandfather's death devastated his close knit family, including his wife of more than 50 years.
After his funeral, during which crowds spilled into the street, Mr Halls was given a guard of honour by local emergency services members as a sign of the selfless community-minded man he was, the judge said.
