A New Zealand court has found the owner of White Island/Whakaari, the offshore volcano that erupted in 2019, killing 22 people, guilty on one charge of breaching workplace safety laws.
On Tuesday, Auckland district court ruled Whakaari Management Limited (WML), the holding company of landowners Andrew, James and Peter Buttle, had not met its obligations to visitors to the volcano.
The 2019 disaster killed 22 people – including 17 Australians – and left 25 others injured while triggering a debate over the safety of New Zealand’s natural hazard and adventure tourism industry. The victims were on the east coast island as part of a tour operation that regularly ferried sightseers out for a closeup look at an active volcano.
WML was the only defendant left after charges against six other entities – including personal charges against the brothers – were previously dismissed by a judge.
In his judgment on Tuesday, judge Evangelos Thomas criticised “astonishing failures” of safety audits given the “obvious risks”, saying WML needed to take expert advice.
“The expert evidence … was also common sense,” he said.
“In WML’s case, it should have appreciated that it could [not] rely on risk assessment work being done by others to relieve it of its own obligation in relation to risk … it needed to stop and re-evaluate,” he said.
“It should have been no surprise that Whakaari could erupt at any time, and without warning, at the risk of death and serious injury.”
The trial opened in July with emotional and graphic testimonies from numerous survivors who told the court they were not properly informed of Whakaari’s risks.
Six other parties pleaded guilty to health and safety failings at the beginning of the trial with a sentencing hearing set for February 2024.
The verdict on Tuesday ends what started as an ambitious undertaking by WorkSafe, the country’s workplace safety regulator. Investigators from the government agency originally charged 13 parties, including science agencies and tourism firms, with health and safety law breaches after the disaster. However, Worksafe’s case crumbled as the judge dismissed the remaining charges except those against WML.
James Cairney, the lawyer for WML, had argued the company did not have active control in the day-to-day operations of tours to the island and was a landowner only.
The maximum punishment for the safety failings is a fine of $NZ1.5 million.
The disaster put a spotlight on the limits of New Zealand’s no-fault compensation system, which automatically pays for some expenses of accident victims such as medical care, grants for funerals and loss of income. However, the system does not allow victims or their families to pursue further compensation with civil cases through the courts.
Some of the tourists who bought their tour ticket to Whakaari through Royal Caribbean Cruises sued the Florida-based company in the US court system.
Michael Winkleman, who represents several victims and victim families in the US, said some clients, including newlyweds Matt and Lauren Urey, have already settled with the cruiseliner for an undisclosed sum. He expects to reach settlement deals before the end of the year for his remaining clients, such as Australian Jesse Langford who was badly burned and lost his sister and parents in the tragedy.
• This article was amended on 31 October 2023. Evangelos Thomas is a district court judge, not “justice” as a previous version said.
Australian Associated Press contributed to this report
