Court hears expert in Legionnaires outbreak trial

The trial over Austria’s largest Legionnaires’ disease outbreak resumes at Feldkirch Regional Court on Thursday, with further witnesses and a court-appointed expert due to testify. It remains unclear whether the court will deliver a verdict, ORF reports.

Three men are on trial: two employees of Wolfurt packaging company Rattpack and a refrigeration technician from an external cleaning company. Prosecutors accuse them of negligently endangering the public and negligently affecting the environment. They allege that Rattpack’s cooling tower was not properly maintained and was never tested for Legionella. The company is also being prosecuted under the law governing corporate responsibility.

The expert’s testimony is a focus of the second day of proceedings, after it was scheduled at the first hearing. That session ran for nine hours, with short breaks, before being adjourned in the evening.

Questions over disinfection system

The court has yet to establish who repeatedly disconnected the cooling tower’s disinfection system from the power supply. The refrigeration technician said he had to reconnect it several times. He suspected it had been unplugged but did not know why, saying disinfection was “not such a big cost factor”. He said he had proposed permanently connecting the pump.

Records repeatedly noted that the biocide dosing had been “reactivated”, suggesting the disinfection system had previously been switched off. The senior Rattpack employee, the first defendant, said he could not explain this. The second defendant, a Rattpack technical employee, said he believed disinfection was unnecessary during the cold season. He said he had not noticed that the cleaning company’s tests never showed Legionella levels.

Defendants dispute responsibility

At the first hearing, the defendants and their lawyers blamed one another. The second defendant’s lawyer said Rattpack had hired the cleaning company to do the work and paid its invoices. The first defendant said he had relied on the technical employee and did not consider himself personally responsible. The third defendant’s lawyer argued that the evidence would show Rattpack alone was responsible for the cooling tower. There was no written contract between the packaging company and the cleaning firm.

The defendants also raised questions about inspections by authorities. The second defendant said official experts knew about the system but did not inspect it during their checks every two years or ask to see information about the cooling tower. The cleaning company employee’s lawyer said avoiding public identification as the suspected source had been the company’s priority in the first hours and days. ORF Vorarlberg said it had pursued several legal proceedings to obtain official records and the company’s name.

Forty-two people were hospitalized

According to Austria’s Agency for Health and Food Safety, 43 people were infected in the outbreak cluster and 42 were admitted to hospital. Prosecutors said nine patients were treated in intensive care, while the agency put the figure at 10. At least two people were reportedly in life-threatening condition. An agency employee told the court it was “very unlikely” that another source of infection had also contributed.

The refrigeration technician said water from the Bregenzer Ach was used in the cooling tower and that he had noticed it was brown. He said the senior Rattpack employee responded with a shrug and said the water would be tested. The senior employee said the company halted all production as soon as suspicions arose. At the start of the hearing, a representative for the company cited a loss of 1.7 million euros in the previous year and a corresponding fall in revenue.