Three men face trial over Austria’s largest Legionnaires’ outbreak

Three men are on trial at Feldkirch Regional Court over the largest known Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Austria, ORF reported. Prosecutors accuse them of negligently failing to maintain a cooling tower at packaging company Rattpack in Wolfurt.

The outbreak ended in February 2025 after 43 people were infected, according to the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety. Forty-two were admitted to hospital, including 10 who required intensive care. At least two people were reportedly in life-threatening condition.

The defendants are a Rattpack manager and two employees of a subcontractor. They face charges of negligent endangerment of the public and negligent environmental impact. Prosecutors said the cooling tower was neither tested for Legionella nor properly cleaned.

The defendants largely blamed one another. The Rattpack manager’s lawyer said his client was not personally responsible for cleaning the cooling tower and had relied on a capable employee.

The employee’s lawyer also denied that his client was responsible, saying Rattpack had commissioned a subcontractor that had worked for the company for years and had issued invoices for the work.

The third defendant’s lawyer largely agreed with the prosecution’s account but argued that Rattpack bore civil and criminal responsibility for the cooling tower. He said there had been no contract between the packaging company and the cleaning firm, and that his client had neither a long-standing contractual relationship nor a special relationship of trust with Rattpack. The third defendant pleaded not guilty.

Lawyer criticises authorities

The lawyer for the cleaning employee accused Rattpack of seeking above all to avoid being identified as the source of the outbreak. He also criticised the state of Vorarlberg and the district authority for not naming the company, calling the authorities’ conduct questionable.

ORF Vorarlberg initiated several proceedings to obtain official documents and the company’s name. Rattpack later provided a statement to ORF when asked. The defence lawyer said Rattpack had allegedly tried to shift sole responsibility to the subcontractor seven months after the incident.

Rattpack is also being held liable as a company under Austria’s Corporate Liability Act. At the opening of the proceedings, the company representative referred to a loss of 1.7 million euros in the previous year and a corresponding fall in revenue.