BHP wins orders to keep coal miner’s evidence out of Court

BHP has received an order from the Federal Court to keep coal miner Simon Turner’s statement secret. The coal miner will object. Stephanie Tran reports.

A former coal miner has appealed against a Federal Court decision to strike out his case against BHP Group, claiming he was denied procedural fairness after being denied the opportunity to give evidence.

Simon Turner has lodged an appeal following a Federal Court decision last month rejecting his claims against BHP, labor hire company Chandler Macleod and Coal LSL, the government agency responsible for administering coal workers’ long service leave entitlements.

The court granted summary judgment to the defendants and issued blanket suppression orders on important court documents.

Turner argues that the chief judge erred in denying him permission to present evidence that denied him procedural fairness as a representative plaintiff.

Last night at 21.00 Kömür LSL filed Notice of objection to jurisdiction to appeal against Turner.

Suppression orders approved

Turner requested that the interim stays be stayed pending the outcome of his appeal.

However, at Friday’s hearing, the court rejected this application and made final decisions based on Judge Needham’s previous decision.

The decision means key documents, including Turner’s pleadings, evidence and parts of the trial transcript, will be protected from public access while the appeal continues.

Attempt to accept payslips was rejected

During the hearing Turner attempted to offer pay slips showing Chandler Macleod Group Limited as his employer, which he claimed were relevant to his claims.

Judge Needham rejected this attempt, stating that the issue before the court was not the identity of Turner’s employer but whether his case should be thrown out.

“The obvious question is whether Chandler Macleod is your employer,” he said. “This was a question about whether the hearing should be canceled…so it does not appear to be relevant to the matters that are before me on the face of it.”

MWM Chandler understands Macleod is seeking costs of approximately $120,000 against Turner.

Judge Needham reserved his decision on final costs orders to be determined on the papers. The costs decision is also likely to be subject to appeal.

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