Personal Injury Law

Nothing Comes Easy When You Are a Turkey Plucker

Being a "turkey plucker" would probably rank in anyone's  top ten list of the worst jobs on the planet.  It would only be worse if you were made sick doing that job.   It would be worse still if five years after the job made you a victim of Campylobacter, you were still fighting in the courts for just compensation from your employer.

That's the story the UK's Lancashire Evening Post is reporting today involving Donna Marie Hull, from Ingol, who was hospitalized and left house bound for six months after coming down with Campylobacter enteritis just before Christmas 2003. She was awarded £16,237.49 damages by Preston County Court in April this year.

However, owners of the Ratten Lane turkey farms challenged the award in the appeals court.  According to the Evening Post:

Miss Hull, of Brighton Crescent, was working as a seasonal turkey plucker at Sherdley Farm in Hutton when she contracted the disease, which causes fever, painful swelling of the abdomen and severe diarrhoea. It can be picked up from bacteria found in uncooked poultry.

Stephen Douglas, for Miss Hull, told the court that the judge at Preston found her employers had been at fault by not insisting that she wore gloves.

For more, go here.
 

Full post as published by Campylobacter Blog on October 22, 2008 (boomark / email).