Announced yesterday, the CDPH is working with local health departments and federal partners to investigate an STEC O157:H7 outbreak linked to the consumption of beef kofta served at several California locations of The Kebab Shop restaurant chain. The Kebab Shop has voluntarily paused sales of grilled beef kofta at all locations. As of May 19, 2026, nine California residents have been infected with the outbreak strain of STEC O157:H7. Illness onset dates range from March 27 through April 30, 2026. Six illnesses are in children. Five individuals have been hospitalized, and two have developed HUS – acute kidney failure.
I have spent more than thirty years watching children fight for their lives because someone served them an undercooked hamburger. I have sat with parents in hospital waiting rooms while their kids lay in kidney failure. I have carried those cases into courtrooms, into congressional hearing rooms, and into the court of public opinion — and I will keep carrying them until the industry and the regulators do what they should have done long ago.
This is a record of what we have done, what it cost, and what it changed. The ground beef industry in America is measurably safer today than it was in 1993. That didn’t happen by accident. It happened because sick children and grieving families refused to be silenced, and because Marler Clark refused to stop.
1993 — Jack in the Box — Multistate
This is where it all began for me. The Jack in the Box E. coli O157:H7 outbreak was a catastrophe — hundreds sickened, dozens hospitalized with kidney failure, four children dead. The attorneys who would go on to found Marler Clark handled most of the resulting litigation, eventually securing individual and class-action settlements totaling more than $50 million — the largest food-borne illness payments the country had ever seen.
My client was Brianne Kiner, nine years old. She spent 42 days in a coma. She suffered kidney failure and permanent neurological damage. I won her a $15.6 million settlement. That case launched my career, and it never left me. Every case I have taken since has had Brianne’s face somewhere behind it.
1994 — USDA Declares E. coli O157:H7 an Adulterant in Ground Beef
The single most important food safety regulatory action I have witnessed in my career happened the year after Jack in the Box. FSIS Administrator Michael Taylor declared E. coli O157:H7 an adulterant in raw ground beef — meaning it was now illegal to sell hamburger contaminated with this pathogen. The USDA also mandated safe handling labels, required HACCP plans, and raised cook temperature requirements for the restaurant industry.
The meat industry fought it. The American Meat Institute sued to block the rule. It took years to fully take hold. But once it did, the numbers told the story: from 1993 to around 2002, roughly 95% of Marler Clark’s revenue came from hamburger E. coli cases. By 2003, major ground beef outbreaks had become rare. That is what a serious regulatory decision looks like. That is what accountability produces.
1998 — Bauer Meat — Georgia
Marler Clark litigated E. coli O157:H7 cases tied to contaminated ground beef produced by Bauer Meat in Georgia. Outbreaks don’t always make national headlines. The families hurt by them suffer just as much.
1999 — Golden Corral — Nebraska
Nearly 80 people were sickened in a Golden Corral E. coli outbreak in central Nebraska. We represented the victims. Eighty people is not a statistic — it’s a community.
2000 — AFG / Supervalu — Minnesota
Marler Clark represented victims of an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to ground beef distributed through AFG/Supervalu grocery stores in Minnesota. Contaminated beef reached families through their neighborhood grocery stores.
2001 — Excel — Georgia
We represented the family of a 12-year-old boy from Norcross, Georgia, infected with E. coli O157:H7 linked to Excel brand ground beef. Twelve years old. A hamburger should not be a life-threatening meal.
2002 — Emmpak — Wisconsin
The USDA-FSIS closed one Emmpak plant for inadequate sampling and testing. By then, 57 people had been sickened by adulterated ground beef — 35 of them in Wisconsin. We represented the victims. The plant was shut down not because the company chose to do the right thing, but because the government finally forced them to.
2002 — BJ’s Wholesale Club — New York & New Jersey
Marler Clark filed E. coli lawsuits related to contaminated ground beef sold at BJ’s Wholesale Club locations in the Northeast. Warehouse retailers selling bulk ground beef carry the same responsibility as anyone else in the supply chain.
2002 — ConAgra Ground Beef — Nationwide
ConAgra is the outbreak that crystallized everything for me about corporate accountability and regulatory failure happening simultaneously. We represented 33 victims — including six children who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and the family of an Ohio woman who died. ConAgra recalled 18.6 million pounds of ground beef from its Greeley, Colorado plant — the second largest meat recall in U.S. history at the time. The USDA subsequently shut down the Greeley plant for repeated failures to prevent fecal contamination. Claims were resolved in 2004.
Eighteen-point-six million pounds. Think about what that number means. And the plant had to be shut down by regulators — it did not shut itself down.
2002 — Congressional Testimony and the “Put Me Out of Business” Op-Ed
After ConAgra and Emmpak, I went to Congress. I testified about the systemic failures that allowed contaminated ground beef to keep reaching American families. And I wrote an op-ed in leading publications with a message I meant literally: the USDA should make my hamburger practice unnecessary by doing its job.
I called on the USDA to:
- Hire more inspectors and give them real authority to sample meat and stop distribution when pathogens are detected.
- Implement a sampling system that provides a reasonable chance of actually preventing outbreaks — not just documenting them afterward.
- Grant mandatory recall authority for contaminated products.
- Support Senator Tom Harkin’s Safer Meat, Poultry and Foods Act — Kevin’s Law — named for a child who died of E. coli.
The industry didn’t want mandatory recalls then. They still resist meaningful enforcement today. But every outbreak that follows a preventable failure is an argument for exactly the kind of accountability I was calling for.
2004 — Carneco / Sam’s Club — Wisconsin & Minnesota
We filed an E. coli lawsuit against Carneco on behalf of a nine-year-old boy who ate “Northern Plains” frozen ground beef patties purchased at Sam’s Club. The outbreak prompted federal authorities to recall nearly 500,000 pounds of product. A nine-year-old. A bag of frozen burger patties. This keeps happening.
2005 — Flanders Provision Co. — Colorado / Nationwide
Marler Clark litigated E. coli cases stemming from contaminated ground beef produced by Flanders Provision Co., affecting victims in Colorado and across other states.
2007 — Cargill Hamburger — Minnesota, Tennessee
Ground beef produced by Cargill and sold at Sam’s Club was the source of an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak that prompted a recall of approximately 845,000 pounds of frozen patties. We represented 14 victims.
Stephanie Smith was 22 years old, a dance instructor from Cold Spring, Minnesota. She developed HUS and was left paralyzed from the waist down. Stephanie’s story became the subject of a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigation by New York Times reporter Michael Moss, who traced her burger through the entire supply chain and exposed the industry’s practice of blending trim from multiple processors with minimal testing. Stephanie settled her lawsuit against Cargill Meat Solutions.
A 22-year-old woman lost the use of her legs because of a hamburger. She deserved better. So did every other victim in that outbreak. So does every American who eats ground beef.
2007 — Fresno Meat Market — California
Marler Clark filed E. coli lawsuits on behalf of victims sickened by contaminated ground beef sold at a meat market in Fresno, California. Local butcher shops and small retailers carry the same food safety obligations as the biggest processors in the country.
2007 — Topps Meats — Nationwide
We filed two lawsuits against Topps Meats — one in Albany, one in Ithaca, New York — on behalf of families whose children were hospitalized after eating Topps hamburgers. Topps Meats went out of business as a result of the outbreak and recall. That is one form of accountability. It is a harsh one, and it comes too late for the families involved.
2009 — Fairbank Farms — Nationwide
Marler Clark filed E. coli lawsuits after Fairbank Farms recalled E. coli O157:H7-tainted ground beef affecting consumers across multiple states, primarily in New England and the Mid-Atlantic.
2008–2009 — $500,000 Ground Beef Testing Study and Non-O157 Petition
I was increasingly concerned that non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing E. coli strains — STECs other than O157:H7 — were sickening Americans but received almost no regulatory attention because they weren’t classified as adulterants. So I did something about it. I personally funded a major scientific study, which ultimately cost approximately $500,000, in partnership with microbiologist Dr. Mansour Samadpour of the Seattle-based Institute for Environmental Health.
We tested 5,000 large retail packages of ground beef purchased at stores across the country for all strains of E. coli. The results showed approximately 2% contamination by non-O157 STEC strains. Given that Americans eat billions of pounds of ground beef annually, a 2% rate meant millions of pounds of potentially dangerous meat reaching consumers every year — and regulators weren’t even required to look for it.
I briefed USDA scientists three times. I shared the findings with the National Meat Association and the American Meat Institute. The agency took no meaningful action. So in 2009, Marler Clark filed a formal citizen’s petition with FSIS demanding that non-O157 STECs be declared adulterants in ground beef and beef trim. When the agency failed to respond as required by law, I threatened to sue. At that point, USDA formally acknowledged receipt.
2012 — USDA Declares Six Additional E. coli Strains Adulterants
It took years. It took congressional advocacy, sustained public pressure, and a formal legal petition that I was prepared to litigate. But in 2012, FSIS officially declared six additional non-O157 STEC strains adulterants in ground beef and beef products:
- E. coli O26
- E. coli O45
- E. coli O103
- E. coli O111
- E. coli O121
- E. coli O145
FSIS simultaneously began mandating testing of ground beef, beef trim, and machine-tenderized steaks for these pathogens. Illnesses from non-O157 STEC strains in ground beef subsequently declined. That is a direct result of Marler Clark’s 2009 petition and the pressure we applied over years. I am proud of that — not because of the litigation, but because people stopped getting sick.
2018 — Cargill — Multistate
Marler Clark litigated a second major E. coli outbreak linked to Cargill ground beef products distributed across multiple states. When the same company appears in your case files more than once, it tells you something about whether accountability is working.
2020 — Marler Clark Petitions USDA to Declare Salmonella an Adulterant
On January 19, 2020, Marler Clark filed a formal petition with USDA-FSIS on behalf of Rick Schiller, Steven Romes, the Porter Family, Food & Water Watch, Consumer Federation of America, and Consumer Reports. We asked the agency to declare 31 Salmonella outbreak serotypes as adulterants in meat and poultry — applying the same regulatory strategy that transformed ground beef safety to the even larger and more deadly problem of Salmonella in poultry.
The petition was denied without prejudice. I continue to advocate for this change. What worked for E. coli in beef can work for Salmonella in chicken. The beef industry’s own experience demonstrates it: declaring a pathogen an adulterant, while initially opposed by industry, ultimately leads to safer products and fewer deaths. The poultry industry will learn the same lesson — the question is only how many people have to get sick first.
2024 — Montana Wagyu Beef / Lower Valley Processing — Flathead County
This outbreak brought me back to the 1990s in the worst way. Wagyu beef processed by Lower Valley Processing was served as undercooked or made-to-order burgers at multiple Flathead County restaurants — Gunsight Saloon, Hops Downtown Grill, Tamarack Brewing Company, the Lodge at Whitefish Lake, and Harbor Grille. Twenty-two cases were identified across 10 states. Two people died.
Marler Clark filed the initial E. coli lawsuit, then amended it to name Lower Valley Processing and Range MT as the source of the contaminated wagyu beef — lot numbers 1398, 1399, and 1400. We subsequently filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of a victim’s family.
The “rare burger” problem is not new. I have been talking about it for decades. When a restaurant offers a made-to-order or “rare” burger preparation, they are taking a public health risk with their customers’ lives. The regulatory framework built around E. coli and ground beef does not protect people from undercooking. Two people died in Montana in 2024 for the same reason children died in Jack in the Box restaurants in 1993. That is unacceptable.
The Impact: What Thirty Years Has Produced
Let me be direct about what this work has accomplished, because it matters and because the numbers are real.
In the early 1990s, ground beef was among the most dangerous foods in the American diet. E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks linked to hamburgers were common — hundreds sickened at a time, children dying, families shattered. By the mid-2000s, major ground beef outbreaks had become rare. The combination of the 1994 adulterant declaration, HACCP implementation, higher cook temperature requirements, more robust industry testing, and sustained legal accountability through Marler Clark’s litigation produced a measurable, lasting reduction in illness and death.
Our practice shifted almost entirely to other foods — leafy greens, sprouts, raw milk, produce. That is not a complaint. That is a report on progress.
But the 2024 Montana outbreak is a reminder that progress is not permanence. The risk never fully disappears — particularly when ground beef is served undercooked, when supply chains grow complex, or when vigilance fades. The regulatory framework built around E. coli and ground beef remains one of the genuine success stories of American food safety policy. It is also a model and a rebuke: a model for what the government can accomplish when it declares a pathogen illegal and enforces that declaration, and a rebuke to every agency that has failed to apply the same logic to Salmonella, to Listeria, to the pathogens that continue to kill Americans today.
I have spent thirty years trying to put myself out of business. I’m not there yet. But the ground beef cases show it’s possible — and that’s worth fighting for.
William “Bill” Marler has been a food safety lawyer and advocate since the 1993 Jack-in-the-Box E. coli Outbreak which was chronicled in the book, “Poisoned” and in the recent Emmy Award winning Netflix documentary by the same name. Bill work has been profiled in the New Yorker, “A Bug in the System;” the Seattle Times, “30 years after the deadly E. coli outbreak, A Seattle attorney still fights for food safety;” the Washington Post, “He helped make burgers safer, Now he is fighting food poisoning again;” and several others.
Dozens of times a year Bill speaks to industry and government throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, China and Australia on why it is important to prevent foodborne illnesses. He is also a frequent commentator on food litigation and food safety on Marler Blog. Bill is also the publisher of Food Safety News.