Winery to pay $12k to worker

Judge Tom Broadmore fined Foley Family Wines $30,000 and ordered the company to pay $12,000 reparation to an injured employee.

A Martinborough family-owned winery has been fined $30,000 for failing to ensure the safety of a worker who broke an arm and damaged tendons when his arm was dragged into a bird netting machine he was winding in.

The accident could have been avoided had Foley Family Wines, in which American billionaire Bill Foley has the majority interest, had proper safety procedures in place, Judge Tom Broadmore said at sentencing in Masterton District Court on Monday.

As well as the fine, Judge Broadmore ordered the company to pay $12,000 reparation to the injured employee who still works there.

The accident happened at Martinborough's Te Kairanga vineyard on April 28 last year when a velcro tag on worker Chris Kokiri's jacket got caught, pulling his arm into the machine's spindle breaking both bones in his forearm and ripping tendons.

Mr Kokiri required hospitalisation and surgery including skin grafts for his injuries.

Foley Family Wines Ltd pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the safety of staff at an earlier appearance.

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment prosecutor Angela Graham told the court the company should have had policies and procedures in place to protect employees when using the bird netting machine.

She had asked the court to consider a fine of $70,000 as a starting point.

Although Mr Kokiri was back at work he had suffered significantly both emotionally and financially. He had to go on a sickness benefit until he was able to return to work, she told the court.

"Every second this machine continued to wind there was more and more damage," she said.

Foley Family Wines Ltd's lawyer Christie Hall said the owners had "done everything right" and there had been no previous accidents of a similar nature.

"They have a good safety record," she said.

Judge Broadmore said the company should have completed a review of the safety policies and procedures when they took on the property 18 months prior to the accident.

Systems in place had been "inherited" by the previous owner which was "primarily flawed" by not recognising that trapping in the netting was a risk, he said.

"In my view ... the fact is this incident was serious."

He fined the company $30,000 and ordered $12,000 be paid to Mr Kokiri for emotional harm.