USA Today featured a detailed timeline of last year’s spinach outbreak – from the first death to the discovery that spinach was the source of the outbreak to the fifth death and how the spinach industry and federal investigators and regulators responded during the crises and beyond. 

Marler Clark client Jillian Kohl stated in the

Tomorrow marks one year since E. coli-contaminated spinach was harvested from a field in California’s Salinas Valley. One month from today will mark a year from the date US health officials – the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control – confirmed that that spinach was the source of a nationwide E. coli

On Monday, Marler Clark will file another lawsuit on behalf of a victim of the recent E. coli O157:H7 outbreak traced to contaminated spinach. The lawsuit will be filed against Natural Selection Foods, LLC and National Selection Foods Manufacturing, LLC in federal court in Utah on behalf of Murray, Utah resident Sheila Leafty and her young son, Brayden. Brayden is one of at least 14 Utah residents who have become ill with E. coli O157:H7 infections after eating contaminated spinach produced by Natural Selection Foods. 

Marler Clark also added both Natural Selection companies to two lawsuits that the firm filed last week in federal court in Oregon and Wisconsin against Dole Food Company. Health officials in those states have reported that at least 19 residents (5 in Oregon and 14 in Wisconsin) were confirmed to be part of the outbreak. On Sunday, the Food and Drug Administration reported that 109 individuals in 19 states, sixteen of whom have developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (see www.about-hus.com), have been confirmed as being part of the outbreak. One Wisconsin resident died after suffering complications of E. coli infection.

As the grower and producer, Natural Selections Foods should have been consumers’ first line of defense against E. coli entering the food supply. Instead, this company allowed contaminated produce to enter the marketplace and caused one of the largest fresh produce-related outbreaks in recent history.Continue Reading Utah child sues California spinach producer and manufacturer over E. coli illness