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.
Category Archives Litigation
Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. settled claims that its insurance carrier unjustifiably refused to pay a significant portion of coverage owed to the food company arising out of a Listeria outbreak. The insurance company that agreed to provide coverage to Pilgrim’s insurer for any bad faith claims successfully mounted against it has been granted a declaratory judgment of no liability. Cont’l Cas. Co. v. Ace Am. Ins. Co., No. 07-958 (S.D.N.Y., decided March 31, 2009). Apparently, Pilgrim’s insurer agreed to the essential terms of a settlement proposed by a mediator before seeking Continental’s consent to settle. Under Texas law, settlement agreements are legally enforceable when the parties have agreed on the amount of consideration to be paid and the release of claims. While Pilgrim’s insurer made minor modifications to the agreement after notifying Continental, the court found that the mediator’s proposal was a binding and enforceable settlement agreement. Because Pilgrim’s insurer did…
Bumble Bee Foods, LLC has filed a complaint in federal court against the company that made the food-sterilization system used to process Castleberry hot dog chili sauce that, in 2007, was contaminated with Clostridium botulinum and led to a nationwide recall of under-processed products. Bumble Bee Foods, LLC v. Malo, Inc., No. 09-042 (S.D. Ga., filed March 26, 2009). Alleging negligent design, failure to warn and negligence, Bumble Bee describes the factory-equipment defect that resulted in incomplete sterilization of its subsidiary’s canned foods. The food manufacturer claims that its 2007 product recall, a two-month plant shutdown and a number of claims filed by individuals who purportedly contracted botulism as a result of eating the tainted products cost the company in excess of $40 million. The complaint alleges that the defendant was aware of the defects “but took no steps either to correct these defects or to advise Bumble Bee or…
A Chinese court in Shijiazhuang has reportedly agreed to accept a lawsuit filed by the parents of a child allegedly affected by the 2007 melamine contamination of milk and infant formula. Until this week, no court had accepted the litigation, a first step in securing compensation outside the administrative procedures established by the government. According to a news source, as many as 600 families refused to accept the compensation offers from the 22 dairy companies that agreed to provide payments ranging from US$290 to US$29,000. The families apparently believed the amounts were not enough to cover emotional suffering and other losses. The Beijing lawyer who filed the case that has been accepted reportedly indicated that it involves an 11-month-old girl who became sick from infant formula manufactured by the now-bankrupt Sanlu Group. The family is seeking about US$4,500, the smallest of the six lawsuits the lawyer has filed against milk…
A California judge has reportedly ordered the parties to litigation over the exposure of banana-plantation workers to a pesticide that allegedly caused their sterility to explain why two lawsuits should not be dismissed as a sanction for the alleged misconduct of the plaintiffs and their lawyers. Mejia v. Dole, No. BC340049 (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles Cty.). In 2008, a jury awarded six Nicaraguan workers $5.8 million in damages in the first of several such cases to be tried in the United States; the court reduced the verdict by half, and the case is on appeal. Thereafter, the defendant began filing the depositions of Nicaraguan witnesses who claimed that (i) some of the plaintiffs had never worked on banana farms, (ii) work certificates and lab reports had been falsified, and (iii) some of the plaintiffs have children, despite their sterility claims. The court reportedly stayed the personal-injury lawsuits and ordered…
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…
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a district court decision refusing to allow the sale of baby formula seized by the government in a civil forfeiture proceeding. U.S. v. Approx. 81,454 Cans of Baby Formula, No. 08-2637 (7th Cir., decided March 25, 2009). Federal agents seized more than 80,000 cans of powdered baby formula in February 2007 on suspicion that they had been stolen from retail stores. According to the court, many of the cans still had retail-store markings or evidence of altered labels, including the products’ “use by” dates. The court distinguished this case from one involving salad dressing, decided earlier in March, that had altered “best when purchased by” dates. Details about that case appear in issue 296 of this Update. Judge Richard Posner authored the opinions in both cases. A “use by” date on baby formula is mandatory under federal law; selling products after that…
A California appeals court has determined that canned tuna sold in the state does not need a mercury warning label under Proposition 65 (Prop. 65) for reproductive toxicity because the mercury is naturally occurring and thus falls within a Prop. 65 exemption. People ex rel. Brown v. Tri-Union Seafoods, LLC, No. A116792 (Cal. Ct. App., decided March 11, 2009). A trial court ruled in 2006 that the labels were not required because (i) federal law preempts state action on methylmercury in fish; (ii) the trace levels of mercury in canned tuna were too insignificant to require warnings; and (iii) the mercury is naturally occurring. Further information about that ruling appears in issue 170 of this Update. The appeals court specifically considered and based its ruling on the last basis for decision only, finding that substantial evidence supported the trial court’s determination as to the source of mercury contamination in fish.…
German courts in Bavaria have reportedly been considering issues raised in a lawsuit filed by an amateur beekeeper who was forced to destroy his honey after it was found to be contaminated with pollen from a nearby field trial of genetically modified (GM) corn. Beekeeper and handyman Karl Heinz Bablok, aware that his hives were near GM cornfields, apparently had samples of honey tested and found that 7 percent of the pollen was from the GM crops. An Augsburg court ordered him to stop selling or giving away his honey, so he sued the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture to recover his costs and lost sales of about US$12,900. Now before a third court, the case reportedly raises significant GM-related issues: if Bablok wins, the GM corn would be discredited; if the court decides that Bablok’s honey is not subject to licensing regulations under the European Union food law,…
A federal court in the District of Columbia has dismissed a lawsuit filed by California almond growers, handlers and grower-handlers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) challenging an agency regulation that requires handlers to treat raw almonds grown and sold in the United States to reduce the risk of Salmonella contamination. Koretoff v. Vilsack, No. 08-1558 (D.D.C., decided March 9, 2009). Without addressing the merits of the complaint, the court granted the USDA’s motion to dismiss, finding that the plaintiffs failed to exhaust their administrative remedies, which would have required petitioning the USDA secretary before bringing their action in court, as mandated by statute. Since September 2007, all domestic almonds intended for sale in the United States must be pasteurized by either proplylene-oxide fumigation or steam heat. Growers and handlers reportedly complain that unpasteurized raw almonds demand higher prices, up to 40 percent more, and that foreign suppliers, who are…
