Personal Injury Law

The Tale of Nebraska Beef Suing the Church Continues

By Bill Marler, Esq.

You might recall a post I made several months back about Nebraska Beef suing the Salem Lutheran Church of Longville, Minnesota claiming, among other things:

• That, upon information and belief, an environmental assessment of the church kitchen and food preparation procedures by the Minnesota Department of Health indicated that there was a high potential of cross-contamination between the ground beef [filled with pathogenic cow shit] and other foods during food preparation.

• That, upon information and belief, the damages sustained by the Plaintiff[s], if any, [one died of E. coli-related complications, and one suffered acute kidney failure] are the direct and proximate result of the negligence and/or other fault for tortuous conduct of Third-Party Defendant Salem Lutheran Church.

Now, I just got notice that Nebraska Beef intends to put the pastor under oath – good gawd!

As you also might recall, in late July and early August 2006, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) received three E. coli O157:H7 stool isolates from residents of, and visitors to, Longville, Minnesota. Pulsed-field gel electrophoreses (PFGE) patterns for all three were indistinguishable, and the pattern had never been seen before in Minnesota. At the same time, MDH learned of an outbreak of gastrointestinal illnesses among members of the Salem Lutheran Church in Longville.

MDA and MDH learned that ground beef used to make meatballs for the church meal, as well as the ground beef purchased by numerous area restaurants, was purchased at Tabaka’s Supervalu. On July 17, members of the church had purchased 40 pounds of ground beef from the Supervalu. MDA conducted an on-site inspection at the store on August 7, 2006. MDH’s epidemiological investigation revealed seventeen illnesses that met the case definition. Of these, three people developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), and one patient died.

The MDA traceback of the chuck rolls from Interstate Meat revealed that the “most plausible” source of the chuck rolls delivered to the Supervalu was the Nebraska Beef processing plant. In addition to this, the USDA reported that a sample of beef trimmings collected on June 14, 2006 at a processing plant cultured positive for E. coli O157:H7, and that the isolate was indistinguishable by PFGE analysis to the outbreak strain. The processing plant was determined to be Nebraska Beef, the company that most likely supplied the implicated chuck rolls to Tabaka’s Supervalu.

Full post as published by Marler Blog on April 30, 2008 (boomark / email).