Marler Clark has been retained by 12 victims of the E. coli outbreak linked to lettuce at Wendy’s restaurants.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s last update of the outbreak was August 19, in which it has not confirmed the source of an outbreak that has sickened 37 people in three states.
Wendy’s pulled romaine lettuce from its sandwiches in several Midwestern states after many of the sick people reported eating at Wendy’s restaurants in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania before getting sick.
The CDC said: “A specific food has not yet been confirmed as the source of this outbreak, but many sick people reported eating sandwiches with romaine lettuce at Wendy’s restaurants in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania before getting sick. Based on this information, Wendy’s is taking the precautionary measure of removing the romaine lettuce being used in sandwiches from restaurants in that region. Wendy’s uses a different type of romaine lettuce for salads. Investigators are working to confirm whether romaine lettuce is the source of this outbreak, and whether romaine lettuce used in Wendy’s sandwiches was served or sold at other businesses. Wendy’s is fully cooperating with the investigation.”
Bill Marler said on his website that the outbreak continues to grow. For instance, Michigan has confirmed 43 cases matched with the outbreak strain. He puts the number of cases at 133 people.
In an interview August 24, Marler said he expects the number of victims to rise, as well as his clients.
He said Wendy’s is the target of the lawsuits as of now, but he plans to add the lettuce supplier or suppliers when that becomes public.
“It’s pretty clear that it’s Wendy’s,” he said. “All of my clients ate there the week before they got sick. The whole genome sequencing is the same.”
“We have been retained by 12 folks in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Pennsylvania, including three with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS),” he said. “We have filed two lawsuits in Ohio and one in Michigan.”
Marler Clark has been involved in many food safety outbreak lawsuits over the past 20 years, including ones against produce companies named in food safety outbreaks.
