More than a year after its outbreak, the infamous peanut butter-linked salmonella epidemic lives on, if only in the courtroom.
A class action filed on Monday accuses food giant Kellogg of failing to warn consumers that its snack foods were possibly contaminated with salmonella, thereby putting its customer base at risk of serious illness.
The suit alleges that, despite Kellogg's constant claims that its products were healthy, nutritious, made with only quality ingredients and safe, the snacks were manufactured using processes and quality-control measures that were grossly inadequate for purposes of ensuring that [they would] not be contaminated. The plaintiffs claim that Kellogg misrepresented its snacks as safe in order to reap significant financial rewards that it otherwise would not have obtained.
As is true for much of the January 2009 recall, the suit's allegations can be traced back to Peanut Corporation of America, the now-defunct company at the center of the outbreak. According to the suit, PCA provided Kellogg with peanut paste for a number of its products, including peanut butter-flavored cookies and cracker sandwiches. Kellogg recalled a handful of snacks in January, and twice expanded the recall to include a larger variety of products.
PCA was implicated in the outbreak after federal inspectors discovered that the corporation shipped peanut products that tested positive for salmonella. A subsequent inspection at PCA plants in Georgia and Texas uncovered a number of health code violations, including leaky roofs, mold, rodent droppings and live cockroaches.
The suit notes that, in issuing the recall, Kellogg urged consumers who bought the recalled products to destroy them and further stated that 'consumers with questions or concerns about their health should contact their doctor, and that the company maintains a page on its website entitled 'Peanut Butter Products Recall Information' on which it also urges consumers who bought the recalled products to destroy them and instructs consumers with questions or concerns about their health to contact their doctors.
But the plaintiffs contend that these measures don't go far enough, since they only offer relief to Class members who manage to learn of the recalls and meet the unreasonable conditions Kellogg has imposed.
Judging from the complaint, lead plaintiff Anthony Benavides doesn't appear to have actually gotten sick from the Austin brand peanut butter crackers at the center of the suit. According to the complaint, Benavides was misled into purchasing and spending money on the products, and received something other than what was represented, a product he did not seek. The suit says that Benavides was injured in fact since he lost money or property because of the company's alleged deception.
Whether that theory will pass legal muster is up for debate. In many situations, consumers can claim economic injury even when they haven't been visibly affected by a corporation's negligence -- owners of recalled Toyotas, for example, can point to the negative effect the flap has had on their cars' resale value. Whether that logic can be applied to crackers potentially subject to a recall -- but that didn't actually make anyone sick -- remains to be seen.
