Dole Settles Lawsuit Over Last Year’s E. Coli Outbreak

Salina, Calif.-based Dole Fresh Vegetable announced June 13 that it had reached a settlement with nine consumers who were made sick by contaminated bags of Dole salads.

The settlement is not an admittance of guilt on Dole’s part, said Eric Schwartz, president of Dole Fresh Vegetables, although he was unable to comment on the details of the settlement. He did say that all outstanding lawsuits had been settled that relate to the incident.

The outbreak prompted Dole to recall about 250,000 of the American Blend, Classic Romaine and Greener Selection bagged salads. Schwartz said Dole evaluated how the situation was handled, and everything happened according to the company’s written policy for situations such as this. Dole conducts a mock recall every year to train key personnel, so he said they were prepared when the E. coli outbreak occurred.

Dole maintains a list of retailers and foodservice operators who can be reached in a matter of hours to pull a product off the shelves. The company also requires all employees and contractors to go through food safety training.

Attorney William Marler represented the nine plaintiffs who were made sick by the contaminated salad bags. The Seattle-based lawyer has represented thousands of people sickened by E. coli, according to his Web site.

Seventeen cases of E. coli infection were confirmed from the September outbreak, mostly in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area of Minnesota. Eight people had to be hospitalized from the bacteria. One of those, 12-year-old Amber Brister, was featured in the April NBC Dateline story on food safety. She was hospitalized for 34 days and suffered kidney failure from the E. coli infection.