Food Poisoning Lawyer & Attorney : Bill Marler : Marler Clark

We were provided today with the report prepared by “The California Food Emergency Response Team (CalFERT).” The “Executive Summary” in part reads:

On December 13, 2006 the Office of Emergency Operations of the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alerted both the San Francisco District Office and the Emergency Response Unit of the California Department of Public Health Food and Drug Branch (FDB) of an emerging outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 illness associated with eating at Taco Bell restaurants and the identification of iceberg lettuce as the most likely food vehicle.

Interestingly, the CDC in its report posted on its website on December 14, 2006 seems to link lettuce only slightly more that other ingredients found in Taco Bells:

CDC is working with state and local health officials, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the restaurant chain to determine what food caused the outbreak. These investigations include an ongoing investigation that involves interviews of ill and well Taco Bell restaurant patrons about what food items they consumed. These food items include a variety of different ingredients…. Public health investigators have identified a few ingredients that were consumed more often by ill persons than well persons and were statistically linked with illness: lettuce, cheddar cheese, and ground beef…. Evaluation of all these data indicates that shredded lettuce consumed at Taco Bell restaurants in the northeastern United States was the most likely source of the outbreak….

The CalFERT Report continues:

FDA conducted traceback investigations from four Taco Bell restaurants in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. These restaurants were selected as representative of the Taco Bell restaurants implicated by public health officials. All four restaurants received shipments of commingled shredded lettuce that originated from both Tanimura & Antle, Inc. (T&A) and Garcia and Church Farms (C&C, shipping as Church Brothers, LLC) in Huron, CA. At the time of the initial farm investigation, 13 T&A fields were identified by FDA as possible sources of lettuce served at implicated restaurants during the time period between October 12, 2006 and December 4, 2006. Subsequently, FDA identified one field (of the original 13) owned by T&A and three fields farmed by G&C as most likely to have supplied suspect lettuce during the time period of exposure at the four restaurants in the traceback (between November 15, 2006 and December 2, 2006). CalFERT investigators reviewed documents supplied by Taco Bell Corporation, Ready Pac Produce, Inc. (a processor), and the implicated growers and determined that two additional fields (from the original 13 T&A fields) supplied lettuce during this time period to the four restaurants. Farm investigations involved 16 fields, with a focus on the six fields identified as most likely to have supplied the implicated lettuce.

The traceback to the the Tanimura & Antle fields as well as those of Garcia and Church Farms did not find E. coli O157:H7 in the implicated fields.  This in combination with the CDC's finding that:

Public health investigators have identified a few ingredients that were consumed more often by ill persons than well persons and were statistically linked with illness: lettuce, cheddar cheese, and ground beef…. Evaluation of all these data indicates that shredded lettuce consumed at Taco Bell restaurants in the northeastern United States was the most likely source of the outbreak….

Makes me wonder if lettuce really is the actual source or vector of the Taco Bell E. coli outbreak.   So far we have resolved all but one of our client's cases stemming from this outbreak.  See full CalFERT Report here:

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According to a press released sent by Dole this evening, this product was sold in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces in Canada and in Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and neighboring states in the U.S,  - whatever that means.  Here is a report from the Associated Press of a few days ago:

A year after the E. coli outbreak, Ag industry chastened and changed

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As the The Salinas Californian reports, legal consequences of two food-borne illness outbreaks that sickened at least 63 people and killed one in 2003 have returned to the Salinas Valley, where state investigators say lettuce and spinach -- contaminated at an unknown point before they were eaten -- were grown.

Beginning with those infected with E. coli 0157:H7 by the tainted produce, lawsuits have blossomed throughout the food-growing and distribution chain. Now River Ranch Fresh Foods and Diamond Produce, the two companies said to have grown the contaminated lettuce and spinach, have taken preliminary steps toward suing Monterey County.

Lawyers for the two Salinas-area companies say the Monterey County Water Resources Agency failed to maintain Santa Rita Creek, resulting in flooding in 2003 that spread waste across a field where produce was grown.

From the article:

Forty of the customers sickened at Pat & Oscar's sued the restaurant chain and settled their claims just before Christmas, said Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who represented 29 of them.

Marler also represents the family of McWalter and Sarah Ish, another sickened Sequoias resident, in lawsuits against Sodexho USA, he said.

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Marler Clark and Keeney, Waite & Stevens filed a lawsuit today on behalf of Christopher and Karie Galindo, and their daughter, Kayce, who is suffering from a severe E. coli O157:H7 infection after consuming contaminated lettuce at Pat & Oscar's on September 28. The lawsuit was filed against Gold Coast Produce and Family Tree Produce in San Diego County Superior Court.

As Marler Clark stated in a recent press release:

"This is the second E. coli outbreak linked to contaminated lettuce in two years," said William Marler, managing partner of Marler Clark. "It is outrageous that produce suppliers are not taking proper precautions to keep our food supply safe. Something must be done to protect our children from being served food laced with deadly pathogens."

Approximately forty people, including Kayce Galindo, became ill with E. coli infections in late September and early October after consuming lettuce at different Pat & Oscar's restaurants. Several school children became ill after consuming contaminated lettuce served in their school lunches. Marler Clark and Keeney, Waite, & Stevens have been retained by over a dozen victims.

Kayce, a sixteen-year-old student and varsity volleyball player at Carlsbad High School, began experiencing severe abdominal cramping and bloody diarrhea two days after she ate a salad at Pat & Oscar's, and was hospitalized at Children's Hospital in San Diego for three days, then was discharged to recuperate. Kayce has again been hospitalized, after developing Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, or HUS, a life-threatening complication of E. coli infections that often leads to kidney failure.

"This latest outbreak is the tenth E. coli outbreak in the last ten years that has been traced to contaminated lettuce," said Marler, whose firm represents several victims of a similar outbreak last summer that resulted in the illnesses of over fifty campers at a dance camp at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington. "The lettuce packaging boasted that the product sold to Pat & Oscars and the School Districts was 'three-times pre-washed.' The problem is, if the produce or irrigation water came into contact with cattle or cattle feces during cultivation and harvest, washing would not have prevented any illnesses. The bacteria would have been inside the lettuce, not on the surface."

As I said in the press release, we filed this lawsuit based on California's Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Laws and the California Health and Safety Code. Under these laws, a manufacturer of food is "strictly liable" for injuries caused by food that was not "reasonably safe." A food product is not reasonably safe if it does not meet a consumer's reasonable expectations of safety. Because consumers reasonably expect the food they consume to be free of pathogens, the manufacturer of any food item that is contaminated with a pathogen, such as E. coli O157:H7 is liable to those who were harmed by consuming the product.

"Typically, when people think about E. coli O157:H7, they think, 'hamburger,'" Marler concluded. "Consumers understand now that E. coli comes from cattle feces, and are especially careful when cooking ground beef. What they don't realize is that if farmers aren't careful, cattle feces can also contaminate fresh produce that doesn't get cooked to a high enough temperature to kill the bacteria, or doesn't get cooked at all - as in the case of lettuce."

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