Former café worker awarded damages after getting Salmonella

After contracting Salmonella, a former employee at a café in an Australian state has been awarded more than $65,000 (U.S. $42,500).

The ruling from the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) relates to an incident in 2017 when the 15-year-old worked at Central Café in Gungahlin.

The female worker, who was employed as a casual kitchen hand in early 2017, was hospitalized with Salmonella Typhimurium in February.

In February 2017, five customers and a waitress at the café contracted Salmonella after eating there. They became unwell after eating different types of food on different days.

ACT Health was notified of illnesses and carried out an inspection. The café was found to have committed numerous breaches of the Food Act 2001 and was closed before being allowed to reopen in March 2017.

A sample of frozen cooked chicken taken during the inspection contained Salmonella Typhimurium, the same type of bacteria that each sick customer contracted.

Breached duty of care
The court also heard from Yaman Kasirga, who took over the café as owner in December 2016, an ACT Health food inspector, two people infected with Salmonella after eating at the café, and several medical experts.

The employee’s primary duty was to prepare food, mostly meat items, for the chef to cook. She did not wear gloves when handling food.

Photographs revealed that the café’s cleanliness was lacking, and it was not a case where it had the misfortune to be inspected on an off day, according to the ruling. An inspection found there was no soap or paper towels in the dispensers, and no hand sanitizer was available; the cool room and other fridges were not under temperature control, and fresh chicken in the cool room was stored at 9.5 degrees C (49.1 degrees F), which is not in line with requirements in the Food Standards Code.

In 2018, Kasirga was prosecuted for selling unsafe food, failing to comply with the Food Standards Code, and for failing to renew the business registration. He was fined $4,500 (U.S. $2,900).

In the current case, it was ruled unlikely that the worker contracted Salmonella from food eaten at the café but probably from meat handled during her work.

According to court documents, the only thermometer at the café was still unopened in its packaging. This means the café had no way of knowing that the cool room was not properly refrigerating the food it contained.

While the court found the defendant was liable in negligence for the plaintiff contracting Salmonella, it did not accept the defendant was as ill as claimed or that ongoing injuries were as severe as alleged, so the awarded damages were less than sought.

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