A building's owners corporation has received a NSW-first conviction for a serious safety breach that led to the death of a worker when he was crushed by a faulty gate.
Jose Martins was killed in June 2020 when a damaged electric industrial gate weighing 260kg fell on him when he tried to manually open it at an industrial complex in Wollongong.
The gate pinned the 64-year-old to the ground at the entrance to the site until other workers arrived about 15 minutes later and lifted it off him.
More than four years later, the NSW District Court fined the building owners corporation $225,000 plus legal costs in the first such conviction for the operators of an industrial property's strata scheme.
SafeWork NSW said the case should put all owners corporations at commercial sites on notice about their legal duties.
"As this case shows, workplace safety is everybody's responsibility," the watchdog's head Trent Curtin said on Wednesday.
An owners corporation is responsible for managing the common property in a residential, commercial or industrial development.
The gate was damaged eight days before Mr Martins was killed after a van ran into it, pushing it off its tracks.
It was rendered inoperable and emergency services put warning tape around the site after being called to the property.
The owners corporation gave approval for repairs a day later and makeshift work was carried out that meant it could be operated manually, despite the risk it could fall, according to the court's judgment in July.
Judge David Russell said the owners of the building's common property, which included the gate, had the power and the obligation to make the site safe.
"Owners did not remove the gate from service or post a sign to the effect that the gate was not operational pending its full repair or replacement," he said in his decision.
Mr Martins' daughter Susana described the anguish the unexpected death of her father had caused and the heartbreak of being unable to say goodbye.
"Shock, anger, disbelief, resentment, loss and pain," she said of her emotions in a victim impact statement.
The court heard the owners corporation did not understand it could be found liable for workplace health and safety breaches before Mr Martins' death.
Judge Russell warned all property owners to carefully consider their obligations as people in charge of a common property in light of the fatality.
The owners corporation was fined $225,000 after pleading guilty to failing to comply with a work health and safety duty and exposing people to a risk of death or serious injury.
The maximum penalty for the offence is $1.73 million.
Mr Martins' employer Maluko Pty Ltd was convicted and fined $375,000 in July 2023 over the incident after pleading guilty to a similar charge.
