Comments on: Legal Professional Privilege is the OHS equivalent of the Non-Disclosure Agreement https://safetyatworkblog.com/2023/01/31/legal-professional-privilege-is-the-ohs-equivalent-of-the-non-disclosure-agreement/ Award winning news, commentary and opinion on workplace health and safety Mon, 30 Jan 2023 22:55:47 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 By: Kevin Jones https://safetyatworkblog.com/2023/01/31/legal-professional-privilege-is-the-ohs-equivalent-of-the-non-disclosure-agreement/#comment-116422 Mon, 30 Jan 2023 22:55:47 +0000 https://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=105614#comment-116422 In reply to Jason Wagstaffe.

Jason, you are right on the matter of prosecuting and investigating. Woodforde’s death was investigated, and it was determined that there were insufficient grounds to prosecute.

]]> By: Jason Wagstaffe https://safetyatworkblog.com/2023/01/31/legal-professional-privilege-is-the-ohs-equivalent-of-the-non-disclosure-agreement/#comment-116418 Mon, 30 Jan 2023 22:24:10 +0000 https://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=105614#comment-116418 As someone that writes a number of expert opinion reports for workplace and public liability injury matters, the use of LLP is a useful tool to ensure that written correspondence between myself and the instructing solicitor is limited to those individuals that are determining, on behalf of their clients, if legal could or should proceed. After reading the article authored by the ABC’s state political reporter, Leah MacLennan, I formed the opinion that the author appears to have misunderstood what the actual issue was.
The non-disclosure of investigation information by government agencies is often not due to LLP. It is normally associated with FOI, in NSW which would be the GIPA Act. LLP is not a protection for employers/company executives. It is for legal teams to determine if legal proceedings may be warranted (on both sides). If employers/company executives are provided with the documentation used by the legal teams that allowed for a particular legal opinion to be formed, then privilege would be lost. I have personally written numerous reports that the client (plaintiff or defendant) would not have seen, and would only be made public if it was used once legal proceedings commenced.
In the article, a quote attributed to Ms Gurner-Hall states “I understand fully why Gayle Woodford’s family want to know why SafeWork decided not to investigate.” I think that should be “prosecute” not “investigate”. Someone would have investigated the fatality. If it wasn’t SafeWork SA, it would have been the SA Police on behalf of the SA Coroner.
If SafeWork SA works in the same manner as SafeWork NSW then each incident is assessed against a number of criteria to determine if a prosecution was in the best interest of all parties, which also includes the general public.
I think the journalist was lazy and did not do enough due diligence to ensure the general public was not provided with information that was not factually correct.

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