Food Safety And Responsibility
Michael Babboni
Personal Injury
There are a lot of foods out there which have certain inherent dangers attached to them. For instance, you should always wash raw fruits and vegetables to remove any pesticides or dirt which may have survived the trip from farm to grocery store to your refrigerator, and you should always cook meat to the recommended temperature before you even think about eating it. However, the companies that farm and process food also have some responsibility to make sure their products are safe.A Meaty Issue
As you might guess from the name, the Food and Drug Administration is responsible for making sure that essentially everything that enters our bodies is safe, reliable, and does what the manufacturer says it does and nothing else. However, meat, poultry, and egg products are so consistently dangerous that the federal government has an entirely separate agency for just these foods: the Food Safety and Inspection Service, which operates out of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In 2014 alone, FSIS recorded 94 recalls which accounted for 18.7 million pounds of food. Many of these recalls were issued because inspectors discovered that the food was contaminated with salmonella, E. coli, or other pathogens. While there’s always a risk of contamination in any uncooked meat or eggs, bacteria will sometimes grow so dense that consumers will get sick even if they follow the product’s cooking instructions to the letter, and that’s when the FSIS will demand a recall.
However, the most common reason for a recall is an undeclared allergen. This means that the product either contains or was processed in a factory that also processes a common allergen, such as peanuts, wheat, or eggs, and that the product’s package didn’t clearly label this fact. Properly declaring allergens is particularly important when it comes to peanuts, as even trace amounts may produce a dangerous reaction in someone with a peanut allergy.
Lingering Liabilities
In a perfect world, there would be no need for product recalls of any kind. In a slightly less perfect world, companies would issue recalls as soon as they noticed the danger, stores and customers would return products promptly in exchange for full refunds, and no one would get hurt.
Unfortunately, the world we live in is far from perfect, and so companies must answer for any harm or injuries they cause even if they issue a recall as soon as they can. If they handle the recall properly, then for most customers a court case, whether class action or individual, is probably not the best idea. With no harm done outside of buying a defective product, a plaintiff usually won’t get much more than the value of the refund.
On the other hand, if a customer gets food poisoning or is otherwise injured thanks to a defective product, especially if it happens before a recall notice goes out or before the customer could have heard about the recall, then he or she may be entitled to much more than the value of a refund. An injured person could sue the manufacturer for damages including medical bills, lost wages from having to stay at home or in the hospital, and general pain and suffering.
Most companies in industries that deal with a lot of recalls carry insurance that provides cash settlements to those who suffer injuries because of defective products. However, insurance providers are for-profit companies, and as such they prefer giving out the smallest settlements they can get away with.
If you’ve been injured or got sick because of a defective product, then it may be in your best interest to hire a personal injury lawyer even if you doubt your case will ever go to court. A good lawyer from a reputable firm may be able to speed up the claims process and even negotiate a better settlement, particularly if the company responsible mishandled the recall. They might have issued notice later than they should have, for instance, or they might have downplayed the seriousness of the danger. Having the advantage of that expertise is easily worth the expense involved.