As part of my ongoing research and writing, I have started a new series on my blog, Safety Case(s).
Each day I will be posting a summary of a health and safety prosecution, looking at the key principles from the case and what lessons we can take away which might inform our approach to safety management. The summaries are written with “non lawyers” in mind, but hopefully lawyers will also find them interesting.
For most of the examples I use, you will be able to access the cases at the Australasian Legal Information Institute website, or through another legal research website, Jade. Both websites offers free access to Australian case law, legislation and other material, and while you are there I encourage you to contribute to the sites to help them continue their work.
For people who are not familiar with legal case citations, you will often see a reference to a number in square brackets, for example:
the phrase "reasonably practicable" means something narrower than "physically possible" or "feasible". [53]
The number is a reference to the paragraph number which will help you find the referenced text most easily.
I hope you find the series interesting and useful, and if you have any comments or feedback please pass them on through the website.
You can access the first case in the series, Kenneth Peter Stratton v Van Driel [1998] VSC 75, HERE.
Best regards.