Legal News

Bill Marler Finds Someone to Sue in Salmonella Outbreak

By Dan Slater

You can call Bill Marler a lot of things, but this much is true: When it comes to foodborne illness litigation, the man knows his business.

Last month, when we spoke to Marler about litigation prospects for the salmonella saintpaul outbreak, which has now sickened nearly 1,300 people, he said that, on the tomato front, there was simply no one to sue. But further investigation into jalapeños — another prominent ingredient in salsa, which seems to have been a common denominator among many of those sickened — may bear litigation fruit, he said, if he could locate “the choke point” for the smoking jalapeños.

This morning, Marler, joined by David Woodruff, a Colorado attorney, made his first move, filing a lawsuit against Wal-Mart and a John Doe jalapeño supplier on behalf of Brian Grubbs, a resident of Dolores, Colorado. The salmonella suit, which makes claims for, among other things, strict product liability, negligence and negligence per se, was filed in Colorado’s aptly-named Montezuma County court.

Grubbs alleges that, in June, the Grubbs family purchased jalapeño peppers from a Wal-Mart Supercenter, that Brian Grubbs ate them and the then fell sick. Grubbs’s wife drove him to the hospital, where he was treated for dehydration and stool samples were taken. Doctors were concerned with Grubbs’ diminished kidney and liver functions due to his preexisting kidney disease, according to the suit. Grubbs’ stool sample came back positive for salmonella saintpaul. It was later confirmed that “left over jalapeno peppers” purchased at Wal-Mart Supercenter tested positive with the same DNA pattern of salmonella saintpaul as the strain that caused the multi-state outbreak of salmonella.

We’ve contacted Wal-Mart for a comment and will, of course, let you know if we hear back.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 01, 2008 (boomark / email).