Pine Haven Hutterite colony E. coli outbreak overview:
- Who: A group of consumers sickened in a 2018 Alberta E.coli outbreak are suing the Pine Haven Hutterite colony
- Why: The plaintiffs say a meat packing store run by the Alberta colony was responsible for the outbreak.
- Where: The E. coli outbreak class action was filed in a Canadian court.
An Alberta Hutterite colony is responsible for a pork E. coli outbreak that sickened dozens of people and killed one, a new class action lawsuit alleges.
The class action lawsuit against the Pine Haven Hutterite colony—which runs meat packing store The Meat Shop at Pine Haven—was recently certified by a judge, Food Safety News reports.
About 45 people are involved in the class action lawsuit against the colony.
The lawsuit relates to contaminated pork that caused an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in the spring of 2018 that led to the death of one person and sickened 42 others, the plaintiffs allege.
Fourteen of the patients had to be hospitalized and five developed a kind of kidney infection known as hemolytic uremic syndrome. About five to 10% of those diagnosed with E. coli infections develop the potentially life-threatening kidney failure complication, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Contaminated pork products traced to The Meat Shop at Pine Haven
After health safety inspectors began looking into the outbreak, they found about half of the cases involved people who had eaten at Mama Nita’s, a Filipino restaurant that has since closed.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency then traced the pork products to The Meat Shop at Pine Haven, the plaintiffs allege.
“The defendants owed a duty of care to the plaintiff and other class members to ensure that its products were safe for consumption and that ingestion of those products would not cause illness or injury,” the lawsuit states.
The plaintiffs are seeking about $16 million in damages.
Meanwhile, in August, Smucker’s agreed to a $1.54 million class action settlement to resolve claims that its Ardent Mills flour products were contaminated with E. coli.
The settlement benefits Canadian consumers who purchased Smucker’s or Ardent Mills flour that was recalled on March 29, April 12 or April 16, 2017, due to E. coli contamination.
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