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Jason Jorgensen was 39 when he walked into a new job at a metal fabrication workshop in Bundaberg on a March morning in 2018, an experienced boilermaker with more than two decades in the trade, but new to the business of building garbage truck bodies.
Leaving school after year 10, Jason had worked his way through farm labouring, welding, painting and baking before settling into boilermaking, earning his Certificate III around 2010.
By late 2017 he was living in Queensland with partner Stacey and their young daughter, relying on casual work in his trade to keep the household afloat.
Metal fabricator, Superior Pak employed him for just over four months, assembling the rear bodies of refuse trucks, a process governed—at least on paper—by a series of “Body Assembly Checklists” that purported to document safe systems of work.
When fitting the curved side sheets to the steel frame of a garbage truck body, the checklist prescribed a turnbuckle system: sheets clamped, turnbuckles tack-welded, tensioned, cut off, then cleaned up before final welding. It was slow, awkward, but structured.
Jason later claimed to have been shown a faster but hazardous system of work using a homemade “v-bar”—a crude lever tack-welded to the sheet and braced against the internal “spider” frame.
He queried why this didn’t match the checklist and was told the paperwork for the system of work hadn’t been updated and the v-bar was more efficient.
Jason had never used such a device before. It wasn’t commercially manufactured, certified, or risk-assessed. It was simply there, in use, part of how work was actually performed.
While standing inside a truck body to complete just such a task, he pulled back on the v-bar with his left hand and welded with his right. The tack weld failed and the bar snapped free.
Jason fell backwards, his left arm catching in the spider frame, before he slammed onto the truck floor, striking the back of his head.
There were no witnesses. He reported straight to supervisor Richard Brown, asked for first aid, and explained the v-bar had broken. He wasn’t sure if he had lost consciousness.
He was given an ice pack, then escorted back toward his bay. As his neck stiffened, his shoulder throbbed and a headache set in, Jason asked to see a doctor. The company manager drove him to Burrum Street Medical, then home.
Medical restrictions followed quickly. He was initially limited to lifting two kilograms with his left arm. He returned on light duties, then gradually back to welding, but only upright—no ladders, no twisting, no overhead work.
He left that job several months later and took work in Mackay, needing income to support his family.
He pushed on as a boilermaker and leading hand despite ongoing pain, stiffness and headaches, until the physical demands became intolerable. Over time he drifted into lighter roles, eventually working as a groundskeeper and maintenance man at a caravan park.
In the court proceedings for injury compensation filed in the District Court at Rockhampton in early 2023, Superior Pak conceded that using a v-bar was unsafe but denied having authorised that method and claimed Jason had gone rogue.
Evidence in the trial before Judge Jefferey Clarke DCJ included that of Steven Young, the boilermaker Jason alleged had instructed him on using the v-bar for ‘efficiency’.
He professed not to recall Jason at all but accepted the checklists showed they had worked together. He was vague about turnbuckles, accepted the v-bar saved time, and conceded toolbox talks banning v-bars occurred after Jason’s accident.
Richard Brown, the supervisor responsible for the system of work, was found evasive and unreliable, denying obvious responsibilities and even the existence of a v-bar photographed in the workshop years later.
The judge preferred Jason’s measured account of the events, finding him an honest tradesman who relied on instruction rather than cutting corners.
He found that the checklists were not safety documents at all but administrative tick-sheets, bearing little resemblance to how work was actually done.
The change in the system of work—using v-bars and bolted lifting lugs—was never risk-assessed, never documented, yet was signed off daily.
That was the system Jason was trained in and expected to follow. It was inherently unsafe, foreseeably so, and causative of his fall. There was no contributory negligence.
The employer also claimed Jason to have been barely hurt. It pointed to the absence of ongoing complaints to his GP and his subsequent consistent work history marred only by some interruptions.
The worker explained he had kept working, medicated and adapted as best he could until eventually he couldn’t.
His partner Stacey described curtailed daily activities, lost hobbies, increased use of analgesia and anti-inflammatory medication and a quiet man in constant discomfort.
Workmates confirmed his struggles including lifting steel and working above shoulder height.
The judge rejected the employer’s arguments and accepted his ongoing pain and his cervical spine and left shoulder injuries were significant and were attributable to the accident.
“I reject the argument that just because the plaintiff didn’t complain to his general practitioner about experiencing pain, or that the doctor didn’t think it necessary to record it, that necessarily means that he wasn’t experiencing it,” so ruled the judge. “The plaintiff should not be criticised for being stoic”.
At 45, Jason was found, – “who would have no difficulty usually in securing work in his chosen field” – unable to return to boilermaking, with his earning capacity permanently reduced, his position in the labour market weakened, and his future clouded by the obligation to disclose his injuries to prospective employers.
Judge Clarke assessed damages at $257,500, including for his diminished future earning capacity.
Jorgensen v Superior Pak Pty Ltd [2025] QDC 204 Clarke DCJ, 12 December 2025
Categories: metal fabrication injury