Encouraging Consumers to Hold Restaurants Accountable For Food Poisoning
Already this year we’ve seen two serious outbreaks of foodborne illness at restaurants, including a Subway Shigella outbreak in Lombard, Illinois, where we are representing many of the victims. Here’s a press release from our office reminding consumers of the strict liability that restaurants face for the good of public health.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MINNEAPOLIS — April 10, 2010 — National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen is reminding consumers that restaurants are liable for any injuries resulting from consumption of the food served to customers.
A pair of recent outbreaks involving E. coli O157:H7 and Shigella have highlighted the issue by making people seriously ill in areas around Honolulu, Hawaii, and Lombard, Illinois. Pritzker Olsen, a leading practitioner of foodborne illness litigation, is monitoring both outbreaks and has filed an Illinois Shigella lawsuit against the Subway restaurant at 1009 E. Roosevelt Road in Lombard.
In the Subway outbreak, health officials have associated improper hygiene by infected food handlers with an outbreak of shigellosis that has sickened at least 78 people, including at least 11 who were hospitalized. Pritzker Olsen is representing many of the victims in the Subway outbreak and continues to accept cases.
In Honolulu, state health department investigators recently closed Peppa’s II Korean BBQ restaurant on South King Street for one day as part of an investigation into an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. Four of seven people sickened by the same strain of E. coli O157:H7 reported eating at Peppa’s before they became ill in March. Health investigators then observed improper food handling at the restaurant and closed it for one day for cleaning and training in E. coli prevention.
Anyone who contracts E. coli poisoning at a restaurant is entitled to damages from the restaurant. This is the case even when the specific food source is not determined by health investigators or when the restaurant unknowingly accepts food already contaminated with E. coli and serves it. Restaurants are an important filter in the U.S. food safety system, demanding food from hand-picked suppliers that is wholesome and unadulterated.
Pritzker Olsen represents E. coli HUS, Shigella, Salmonella, Listeria and other food poisoning victims throughout the U.S., including Hawaii.
In a recent case in Moultrie, Georgia, our lawyers filed suit against The Barbecue Pit, Inc. restaurant, Nebraska Beef, Ltd. and H & L Distributors on behalf of a woman who contracted an E. coli infection after eating contaminated beef later recalled by Nebraska Beef.
Our client suffered bloody diarrhea with intense and painful stomach cramping. Shortly after she was hospitalized, she began suffering from TTP-HUS, a complication of an E. coli O157:H7 infection that causes kidney failure and can affect other organs such as the brain and the heart. Our client was hospitalized for two months and almost died several times. Following her hospitalization, she was transferred to an inpatient rehabilitation unit at the hospital for approximately two weeks. She required several more hospitalizations in the following months.
As a result of this incident, our client sustained severe and permanent injuries involving her brain, heart, kidneys and other organs and bodily functions.
Food poisoning of any kind is not to be taken lightly. For gastrointestinal symptoms such as painful cramping, diarrhea, fever, nausea and vomitting, see a physician immediately. It most cases, a doctor’s offhand diagnosis that your symptoms are “food related” is not enough for legal purposes. It is critically important that your doctor runs the appropriate stool or blood test to determine the particular type of food poisoning you suffered.
Restaurant outbreaks of foodborne illness are preventable and often stem from lax training in safe food handling and preparation. When restaurant owners are held accountable for making people sick, our food safety system is strengthened for the good of everyone.
For more information, contact Pritzker Olsen at 1-888-377-8900 (TOLL FREE) or 612-338-0202, email Fred at fhp@pritzkerlaw.com or visit our website, www.pritzkerlaw.com. The firm represents food poisoning victims nationwide and has offices at Plaza VII, Suite 2950, 45 South Seventh Street, Minneapolis, MN 55401.
A Call for Full Disclosure in Steak E coli Restaurant Outbreak
Here’s a press release that went out today from my office:
MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 7, 2010—Applebee’s and Olive Garden have been added to the list of restaurants affected by a Dec. 24 recall of nearly 250,000 pounds of steaks, medallions and other beef products that may have been tainted with E. coli O157:H7, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. Previously the only restaurants named in connection with this recall were Moe’s Southwest Grill, Carino’s Italian and 54th Street Grill & Bar owned by KRM Inc.
The news comes two weeks after the beef supplier, National Steak and Poultry, and federal officials announced the recall. Since then, 21 cases of E. coli in 16 states have been linked to this recall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Nine of these cases required hospitalization and at least one patient contracted life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). States with confirmed cases include: California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Washington.
Applebee’s operates about 2,000 locations nationwide; Olive Garden has 695.
“There are thousands of restaurants in question—how many more people will get sick before we see a full and detailed list of restaurants where this beef was distributed?” said food safety attorney Fred Pritzker. “Two weeks is simply too long to wait for this news.”
“As a customer of NSP (National Steak and Poultry) we took immediate action when learning of this recall,” Applebee’s spokeswoman Nancy Mays told Nation’s Restaurant News. Furthermore, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) “does not agree that publicly identifying food service establishments would provide consumers greater protection from the risks associated with tainted meat or poultry.”
It is Pritzker’s opinion that these policies and procedures aren’t enough. “No matter how many future illnesses might be prevented by removing tainted meat from restaurant menus after cases have been reported, that does nothing for the people who actually got sick,” he said. “Restaurant chains and food safety officials need to understand that diners have a right to know where and how they became sick.”
Fred Pritzker is founder and president of Pritzker Olsen, P.A., one of the few law firms in the nation practicing extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation. Over the years, the firm has collected tens of millions of dollars for victims of food poisoning. The firm has offices at Plaza VII, 45 7th St. So., Suite 2950, Minneapolis, MN 55402. For more information or to contact Fred, call 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free), or visit our web site
Restaurants May be Involved in Possible Steak E. coli Outbreak
In the first published epidemiological report on an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with steak products, the authors warned that restaurants should be warned about the increased risk of E. coli infection from undercooked steaks previously tenderized with blades and injections of brine or marinade.
That excellent advice came in 2005 when Minnesota public health investigators wrote about 12 confirmed cases of E. coli O157:H7 from non-intact, blade-tenderized frozen steaks that had been sold by door-to-door vendors in Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, North Dakota and Kansas. Three of the victims were hospitalized, including a 52-year-old patient who was treated for 25 days after developing hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), and was discharged with “residual neurological deficits.”
Four years later and our national food safety law firm, Pritzker Olsen Attorneys, is investigating a possible steak E. coli outbreak associated with at least one large United States restaurant chain. Nothing official has come out as of yet, but we have been contacted by E. coli O157:H7 survivors who may have been infected by meat injected by tenderizing ingredients. The outbreak is believed to have reached multiple states.
These injections and other mechanical tenderizing techniques may enhance flavor but can be dangerous to consumers when brine is contaminated and when meat isn’t cooked well. Even some restaurant cooks may mistakenly believe that all steaks can be safely served rare in the middle. That’s true with intact, untouched steaks because any bacteria is on the surface and is easily killed.
But when steaks are tenderized with brine or mechanical blading, the processes can drive pathogens into the center of the meat, like hamburger. In those cases, an instant-read themometer should be used to ensure proper cooking.
Here’s what the 2005 report said: ” These processing methods create new challenges for prevention of O157 infections. Food regulatory officials should re-evaluate safety issues presented by nonintact steak products, such as microbiologic hazards of processing methods, possible labeling to distinguish intact from non-intact steaks and education of the public and commercial food estabshments on the increased risk associated with undercooked nonintact steaks.”
Technologists, FDA Collaborate on Tracebacks
A recent collaboration involving the Institute of Food Technologists and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is intended to improve product tracing in food production and distribution. That study, released in October 2009 and entitled Traceability (Product Tracing) in Food Systems, identified key data elements, use of electronic forms and standardized formats as a means to identify and track food products implicated in E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks and other foodborne illness outbreaks. 
Traceability is an essential component of food safety regulation. Simply put, it is essential that every food’s supply chain (from farm to retail/foodservice outlet) be known, recorded and easily accessed. This allows for rapid detection of the source of foodborne illness outbreaks, removal of adulterated products from the marketplace, consumer warnings and identification of wrongdoers in product liability claims brought on behalf of foodborne illness survivors.
Unfortunately, the system of traceability in this country is fragmented and incomplete. For example, there is no standardized system for the identification and recording of key data elements (e.g. physical location at which the product was handled, lot numbers, amount of product manufactured or shipped, recipients of shipped products, etc.). In addition, there are no approved standardized formats and no record-keeping requirements for Critical Tracking Events (“CTEs” – instances in which a product is moved between premises, is transformed or is otherwise determined to be a point at which data capture is necessary to trace the product).
These deficiencies are well known and long-standing. They endanger consumers and make it difficult to hold wrongdoers accountable for the harms and losses they cause. As food safety lawyers involved in virtually every major outbreak of foodborne illness, we at Pritzker Olsen Attorneys believe the common sense recommendations in this report should be implemented without further delay.
Fred Pritzker On Newsmakers
