Food Poisoning Lawyer & Attorney : Bill Marler : Marler Clark

As the Associated Press reported yesterday, I filed my lawsuit against Crossroads Farm Petting Zoo Friday on behalf of my clients whose young children got HUS from E. coli contamination at the North Carolina State Fair. Some of these families have more than $100,000 in medical bills, so this won't be a cheap lawsuit. Not that HUS cases ever are.

And not that there's any amount of money in the world that could restore what these families have lost. One family had two preschool boys who became severely ill, with one boy hospitalized for 10 days and the other for 17 days. All of the children involved in the lawsuit were 3 or younger.

As the AP reports:

"Twenty-four outbreaks have been linked to fairs and petting zoos since 1995," Marler said after the lawsuit was filed. "At this petting zoo, procedures were woefully inadequate to prevent an outbreak."

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Another news article on my two most recent Chi-Chi's lawsuits, on behalf of Bennie Martino and Angelo Palitti.

Chris Osher of the Tribune-Review reports:

The lawsuits, both filed by Seattle lawyer William Marler, allege that the method Chi-Chi's used to store green onions, which health officials have identified as the likely culprits, essentially created "hepatitis soup."

"It was definitely the last thing I needed to go through at that point," Martino said. "It was just crazy. Now, I get creditors calling me and sending me letters. I tell them it's in litigation. That's all I can do right now."

He said his adopted 6-year-old son helped him pull through.

"He'd come to the hospital every day and see me laid up like that," Martino said. "The most important thing in my life is my boy and being here for him."

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Lawsuits against Chi-Chi's Mexican Restaurant, the center of a major hepatitis A outbreak last year, continue to trickle in.

As KDKA.com reported:

Two more federal lawsuits were filed this week against the chain for making what one attorney calls "hepatitis soup."

Bennie Martino, of Monaca, and Angelo Palitti, of Aliquippa, say they too were sickened by green onions when they ate at the chain restaurant in a Beaver County mall last fall.

The suits were filed by Seattle attorney William Marler, who is representing numerous other victims in the case. Nearly 700 people were sickened in the outbreak and four died from complications. Marler says improper storage of the green onions by Chi-Chi's led to the outbreak.

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Christopher Snowbeck of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did a story yesterday about my clients Richard and Linda Miller, two of the 660 people sickened with hepatitis A in last year's Chi Chi's outbreak. Snowbeck's article Hepatitis still hurts reports:

Tomorrow marks the single day on which the greatest number of outbreak patients -- more than 50 -- started feeling sick last year. Most of those people have recovered, but from Richard Miller's home on a quiet street in the town of Beaver to the farms of northwest Mexico, the outbreak's impact still lingers.

Chi-Chi's is in the process of paying out about $10 million to roughly 350 of those sickened in the outbreak. That includes payments of more than $35,000 to each of about 50 victims -- larger claims that are subject to bankruptcy court approval.

Ernst said fewer than 100 claims from hepatitis A victims have yet to be resolved through a special mediation process. But Bill Marler, an attorney for several people sickened in the outbreak, said several of the remaining cases -- including that of Richard Miller -- involve some of the most serious illnesses. Chi-Chi's has $51 million in liability insurance.

But monetary damages aren't the only pains still being suffered. Richard Miller still feels the pain, too.

In the kitchen of his Beaver home, a plastic tub filled with 11 pill tubes sits on the counter, a constant reminder of the many medicines he must take. Miller received a liver donated by a 24-year-old, and the organ is functioning very well. But the transplant requires him to take anti-rejection drugs, likely for the rest of his life, and cope with their side effects.

During the transplant surgery, Miller suffered a cardiac arrest, which cut the supply of oxygen to the brain. As a result, he has brain damage that sporadically affects his short-term memory.

Hobbies such as golf, hunting and fishing are impossible, and Miller says he can't even mow his lawn. But what really hurts is not being able to work, he said.

"Work gives you purpose in life," Miller said. "Somewhere along the line, I have to find a way to find that again. But right now, I only have about two hours worth of work in me each day."

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Pennsylvania health officials reported Tuesday that there are at least 300 confirmed cases of hepatitis A linked to the Beaver County Chi Chi's outbreak. Not all were from the Pittsburgh area. Other confirmed cases were from Ohio (31), West Virginia (8), Florida (1), and South Carolina (1).

So far, the outbreak has claimed one life. 38-year-old Jeff Cook of Aliquippa got sick after his family ate at the Chi-Chi's Restaurant in early October and died of liver failure Friday following a transplant.

On Tuesday, the University of Pittsburgh Medical reported that four people were in fair condition and two were still in critical condition from illnesses tied to the outbreak.

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