Eric and Ryan Jensen, who owned the cantaloupe farm linked to a deadly 2011 Listeria outbreak, have reportedly urged a court, following their pleas to charges related to the incident, not to sentence them to prison. Additional details about the plea and charges appear in Issue 500 of this Update. They apparently claim that they do not need correctional treatment and have done everything possible to make the victims whole, including declaring bankruptcy to make a pool of money available to compensate them. The brothers pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor charges that each carry potential sanctions of one year in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both, as well as one year of supervised release. A sentencing hearing will be held in late January 2014. According to Eric Jensen’s brief, “this case has already prompted a new awareness of food safety law and the strict liability imposed on producers and food…
Tag Archives Listeria
A federal court in Oklahoma has dismissed, without leave to amend, claims filed against the company that audited Jensen Farms before a 2011 Listeria outbreak sickened dozens of consumers, including the plaintiff, who allegedly contracted listeriosis from the strain linked to the farm’s cantaloupe and was hospitalized for a month. Underwood v. Jensen Farms, No. 11-348 (E.D. Okla., decided December 31, 2013). Auditor Primus Group, Inc. allegedly gave the farm a “superior” rating and 96-percent score after a July 25, 2011, audit, and the plaintiff became ill on September 2. The court determined that the plaintiff could not show that the auditor owed him a duty under Oklahoma law because “the connection between the July 25, 2011, audit and the onset of Plaintiff’s illness [was] too remote in both time and circumstance. Significantly, Plaintiff has failed to plead facts sufficient to establish that the contaminated cantaloupe would not have been…
Jensen Farms has filed a lawsuit against the company that hired the food-safety auditor who gave the cantaloupe grower a “superior” rating during a 2011 audit not long before the grower shipped fruit allegedly contaminated with Listeria to a distributor that required the cantaloupe to be certified by the auditor, giving rise to a nationwide outbreak that killed 33 people and hospitalized many others. Jensen Farms v. Primus Group, Inc., No. ___ (Colo. Dist. Ct., filed October 15, 2013). The farm has since ceased operation, and the Jensen brothers have entered guilty pleas to charges of adulteration of food and aiding and abetting. According to the complaint, a Primus auditor indicated in 2010 that the cleaning technology used at the farm could potentially contaminate cantaloupe because it used re-circulating chlorinated water. The 2011 auditor, a different individual, was told about changes to the system made in response to the 2010 concerns,…
Eric and Ryan Jensen, who own the Colorado cantaloupe farm linked to a deadly 2011 Listeria outbreak have reportedly indicated to a federal court that they intend to plead guilty to the criminal misdemeanor charges brought against them. Additional information about the charges appears in Issue 498 of this Update. The six misdemeanor charges of adulteration of a food and aiding and abetting carry potential jail terms of one year and a fine per charge of $250,000. The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reportedly found that the brothers failed to adequately clean their cantaloupes after changing their produce-cleaning system and that their actions were responsible for the deaths of 33 consumers. See NBCNews.com, October 16, 2013.
Brothers Eric and Ryan Jensen who own the Colorado cantaloupe farm linked to a deadly 2011 Listeria outbreak have reportedly been arrested on six misdemeanor charges of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce and aiding and abetting. According to court records, they purportedly changed their cantaloupe cleaning process in May 2011 and never used the chlorine spray incorporated into the system. The Department of Justice (DOJ) alleges that they “were aware that their cantaloupes could be contaminated with harmful bacteria if not sufficiently washed.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that people in 28 states consumed the contaminated cantaloupe, 33 died, 147 were hospitalized, and a pregnant women miscarried. The brothers reportedly pleaded not guilty and face a December 2, 2013, trial. If convicted, each could serve one year in prison and be fined up to $250,000 for each charge. See DOJ News Release, September 26, 2013; Fox…
Consumer Reports magazine has allegedly identified bacterial contamination as well as antibiotic-resistant bacteria and veterinary drug residues in pork chop and ground-pork samples purchased from U.S. grocery stores. According to an analysis in the January 2013 edition of the magazine, 69 percent of the 198 pork samples in question purportedly contained Yersinia enterocolitica; 11 percent contained Enterococcus; and 3 to 7 percent contained Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus, or Listeria monocytogenes. In addition, the magazine reported that 13 of 14 Staphylococcus samples isolated from pork were resistant to antimicrobials, as were six of eight Salmonella samples, 12 of 19 Enterococcus samples, and 121 of 132 Yersinia samples. Consumer Reports has also claimed that approximately one-fifth of 240 pork products analyzed in a separate test “harbored low levels of the drug ractopamine,” a growth promoter used in U.S. pork production but banned in the European Union, China and Taiwan. Consumers Union, the policy…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently published its second annual Reportable Food Registry (RFR) report summarizing information submitted by manufacturers, processors, packers and holders through the online Food Safety Portal from September 8, 2010, to September 7, 2011. Covering all human and animal food/feed regulated by FDA “except infant formula and dietary supplements,” RFR tracks “patterns of food and feed adulteration” to help FDA administer inspection resources more effectively. According to the report, FDA received 1,153 total entries in RFR’s second year compared with 2,600 in its first year, a difference which the agency ascribes to three major events in 2009-2010 that generated 1,284 subsequent records related to sulfites in prepared side dishes, Listeria monocytogenes in cheese spreads and Salmonella in hydrolyzed vegetable protein. Without these entries, FDA stated, the tallies for the first and second years would have differed by only 74 records. In particular, the second annual…
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s report on the 2011 Listeria outbreak that was traced to cantaloupes grown and processed at Jensen Farms in Colorado has identified a number of problems that led to the “deadliest foodborne illness outbreak in over 25 years.” The bipartisan investigation found that a third-party auditing company (i) gave the farm high food-safety marks despite identifying major and minor deficiencies, (ii) did not hold the farm to anything other than baseline industry standards, and (iii) had no procedures in place to require corrective actions. One of the problems that led to the outbreak was the farm’s failure to use an anti-microbial solution in the cantaloupe wash water. Jensen Farms apparently stopped using the solution after consulting with the third-party auditing company in 2010 about ways to enhance its food-safety efforts. In 2011, the farm had adopted an alternative to the hydrocooler it previously used to process…
A Nebraska resident alleging that his consumption of Listeria-contaminated cantaloupe grown by Jensen Farms in Colorado caused his infection and subsequent hospitalization, has filed a personal injury action against the grower, distributor, retailer, and the company hired by the grower to conduct a food safety audit before the outbreak. Braddock v. Jensen Farms, No. 11-402 (D. Neb., filed November 30, 2011). According to the complaint, Primus Group, Inc. was negligent in performing the audit and failing to detect Listeria or conditions leading to Listeria contamination at the grower’s facilities and, in breaching its contract with the grower, harmed the plaintiff, a third-party beneficiary. The plaintiff also alleges strict product liability, breach of warranty, negligence, and negligence per se against the other defendants and seeks general, special and incidental damages.
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has requested that the owners of Jensen Farms, identified as the source of the cantaloupe contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes responsible for a nationwide foodborne illness outbreak, schedule a briefing with committee staff. The October 21, 2011, letter also asks that Ryan and Eric Jensen “preserve all documents and communications that may be relevant to understanding the reasons for the contamination and distribution of contaminated products from Jensen Farms.” The committee requests that the staff briefing “occur in person no later than November 3, 2011.
