The South Australian Employment Tribunal has found that employers who mandated their staff to take the COVID-19 vaccines can be held liable for injuries caused. The ruling implies that employers will no longer be able to claim that they are protected from compensation because they were complying with a lawful state government directive.
Youth support worker Daniel Shepherd won an appeal against the state of South Australia after it had rejected his claim for compensation following a diagnosis of vaccine-induced pericarditis, a heart condition, which he contracted from a third dose of the COVID-19 jabs. Reception of the vaccine had been mandated by his employer, the Department of Child Protection (DCP).
The DCP admitted that the vaccine caused the pericarditis but said that the injection did not “arise from employment but from a lawful State Government vaccination directive.” The DCP argued that the government was solely to blame.
