3 days ago
- Health
- North Wales Chronicle
Staff 'caught COVID-19' while working at factory on Anglesey
Mark Edwards, Glynne Roberts, Nia Williams and Brian Perry, who worked as food processing operatives for 2 Sisters Food Group, are bringing claims against the company for damages for injuries and losses following development of symptoms of the virus in mid-2020.
2 Sisters Food Group shut its Llangefni factory in 2023.
A previous court hearing found in 2 Sisters' favour, but at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre in April, Judge Sir Peter Lane allowed an appeal of this ruling from all four ex-employees.
In July 2024, Judge Wendy Owen concluded that the ex-employees would face a 'nigh-on impossible task' in establishing a causal link between a breach of duty from 2 Sisters and their contracting of COVID-19.
They say they were working 'shoulder to shoulder' when, in June 2020, there was an outbreak of COVID-19 at the Llangefni factory, and that the site was then closed at the direction of Public Health Wales.
As far as they are aware, 217 of the 560 staff at the factory contracted COVID-19 during the course of the outbreak, including all four of them.
2 Sisters admits they worked in close proximity with each other but contests the 'shoulder to shoulder' claim, and refutes the suggestion that the factory's closure was directed by Public Health Wales.
In his written reasons, published on Wednesday (May 28), Judge Lane wrote: 'The causation issue stands front and centre of this case. The scenario posited by the appellants was not a fanciful one.
'What is potentially relevant to the present claims is, however, the prevalence of COVID-19, certainly in the area containing the factory and perhaps further afield, depending on the places of residence of the appellants.'
Judge Lane added that if evidence were to show, for example, relatively low levels of COVID-19 on Anglesey in June 2020, then 'it is plainly not fanciful for the appellants to be able to show, on the balance of probabilities, that their illness would not have been sustained but for the respondent's breach of duty'.
Though he allowed their appeals, he said they 'face an uphill task' in proving their cases.
