The Iowa Supreme Court has awarded disability benefits to a former slaughterhouse worker who allegedly contracted brucellosis from butchering hogs. IBP, Inc. v. Burress, No. 07-1887 (Iowa, decided July 10, 2009). The court determined that the disease was caused by a traumatic event and thus was a compensable injury under state law. So ruling, the court affirmed an intermediate appellate court decision rejecting a district court’s determination that the claimant had an occupational disease and failed to timely file his workers’ compensation petition. The court discusses in some detail how the claimant came into contact with Brucella organisms through open cuts while exposed to hog blood during his 10-year tenure at IBP, Inc.’s meat-packing plant. He allegedly developed a chronic infection of the hips and bone as a result of his contact with blood products and tissue from slaughtered hogs, but was not apparently diagnosed with the disease until some six years…
Category Archives 8th Circuit
Multidistrict litigation plaintiffs who sued Aurora Dairy Corp., an accredited organic certifying agent and a number of food retailers have appealed the district court decision dismissing their claims to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. In re: Aurora Dairy Corp. Organic Milk Mktg. & Sales Practices Litig., MDL No. 08-1907 (E.D. Mo., appeal noticed July 2, 2009). As noted in the June 5, 2009, issue of this Update, the district court concluded that the claims, which involved allegations that Aurora Dairy sold its milk as organic while violating national organic program requirements, were preempted by federal law and regulations. In their list of issues on appeal, the plaintiffs question the validity of this determination.
The U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri has announced that a Nevada company and its owners entered guilty pleas in federal court “to distributing a tainted ingredient used to make pet food, which resulted in a nationwide recall of pet food and the death and serious illness of countless pets across the United States in 2007.” Sally Qing Miller, her husband Stephen Miller and their company Chemnutra, Inc. reportedly pleaded guilty to some of the charges in a February 2008 indictment, admitting that “melamine was substituted wholly or in part for the protein requirement of the wheat gluten” they imported from China and distributed in the United States and Canada and that “the labeling of wheat gluten was false and misleading.” The Millers are apparently each subject to a sentence of up to two years in prison without parole, fines of up to $200,000 and an order of…
According to a news source, a Las Vegas-based company and its co-owners have agreed to plead guilty to charges that they imported from China melamine-tainted wheat gluten used to make the pet food that purportedly sickened and killed thousands of cats and dogs in the United States and Canada in 2007. More details about the criminal indictments appear in issue 247 of this Update. ChemNutra, Inc. and its co-owners, Stephen and Sally Miller, have apparently reached an agreement with federal prosecutors and will enter their pleas during a June 16, 2009, hearing. The export broker, a Chinese company, allegedly mislabeled 800 metric tons of wheat gluten to avoid inspection in China and did not properly declare the contaminated product when it was shipped to the United States for use in pet food. ChemNutra took delivery of the wheat gluten in Kansas City and then sold it to various pet food manufacturers.…
The multitdistrict litigation (MDL) court in Missouri before which nearly 20 putative class actions against Aurora Dairy Corp., an accredited organic certifying agent and several retailers had been consolidated for pre-trial proceedings, has dismissed the lawsuits with prejudice finding that federal organic food laws preempt the claims. In re Aurora Dairy Corp. Organic Milk Mktg. & Sales Practices Litig., MDL NO. 08-1907 (E.D. Mo., decided June 3, 2009). Relying on a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) investigation that found the dairy in violation of national organic program requirements relating to pasturing and organic management, the plaintiffs alleged violations of various state consumer protection laws, breaches of express and implied warrantees, negligence per se, negligent misrepresentation, and unjust enrichment. The court discusses at length the program under which Aurora Dairy conducted its operations with the overall supervision and control of USDA. While the court found that the litigation claims were not expressly…
A federal magistrate in Colorado has consolidated two lawsuits that address whether Aurora Dairy Corp.’s insurers are required to defend or indemnify the organic dairy in a host of consumer class actions alleging that the company falsely certified its milk as organic. ACE Am. Ins. Corp. v. Aurora Organic Dairy Corp., No. 08-1236 (D. Colo., order entered May 20, 2009). The putative class actions, consolidated before a multidistrict court in Missouri, claim that Aurora’s milk products do not conform to organic standards, citing a U.S. Department of Agriculture report that purportedly found shortcomings in Aurora’s organic operations. Among other matters, the claimants seek disgorgement for unjust enrichment. Aurora sued Nationwide Agribusiness Insurance Co. seeking a declaration that the insurer was required to defend it in at least one of the pending class actions. The dairy also sued for bad faith, breach of contract and related claims. A group of insurers…
As anticipated, federal prosecutors have reportedly filed a motion to dismiss a number of charges of aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft against a Postville, Iowa, slaughterhouse, its former executive and a former manager. The action was taken after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a conviction under the identity theft law requires a showing that those presenting false identification documents to employers knew they belonged to another real person. More information about the case and its effect on charges arising from the immigration raids that occurred in Iowa in 2008 appear in issue 303 of this Update. According to a news source, prosecutors knew they would be unable to prove that the undocumented immigrants who worked at an Agriprocessors, Inc. facility knowingly used identification papers belonging to others, and thus, they would be unable to prove that the managers and executives were guilty of aiding and abetting. After nearly…
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that a conviction under the identity theft law requires a showing that those presenting false identification documents to employers knew they actually belonged to another real person. According to Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the unanimous Court, the law was intended to crack down on classic identity theft, for example, where a defendant uses another person’s information to get access to that person’s bank account. Prosecutors have been using the law, which calls for a mandatory prison term, against immigrant workers to get them to plead guilty to lesser immigration charges and accept prompt deportation. After the Court issued its ruling on May 4, 2009, the manager of a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, raided in May 2008, sought to withdraw her plea to a charge of aggravated identity theft for allegedly helping illegal immigrants get jobs at the plant with documents she knew…
Food litigator William Marler has reportedly filed the first lawsuit against CW Sprouts for a recent Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak that purportedly sickened more than 100 in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Stephen Beumler of Omaha apparently claims that he ate a sandwich with the company’s alfalfa sprouts and fell ill with the Salmonella strain traced to its products. Filed in a federal court in Nebraska, the lawsuit alleges product liability, negligence and violations of implied warranties of merchantability. Beumler reportedly seeks unspecified damages and attorney’s fees. See U.S. Food Law Report, April 3, 2009.
A federal court in Missouri has determined that Texas plaintiffs alleging injury from the contamination of conventional rice crops with genetically modified (GM) rice had no reasonable basis to join non-diverse defendants and thus denied their motion to remand to state court. In re Genetically Modified Rice Litig., MDL No. 1811 (E.D. Mo., decided March 24, 2009). The 34 cases at issue were transferred from Texas to the Missouri court along with some 200 others from four other states as part of a multidistrict litigation proceeding. Rice farmers allege that the GM rice contamination adversely affected the global market for their products. The Texas plaintiffs sued the GM seed rice company and its affiliates, citizens of states other than Texas, and also sued a Texas rice grower and his affiliated companies alleging that he negligently grew the GM rice and contaminated neighboring fields or sold them GM seed rice. Plaintiffs…
