Homemade, unpasteurized butter was the probable source of E. coli O157:H7 contamination that sickened at least 200 people at Prospect Elementary School in rural Robeson County, North Carolina, in the fall of 2001. State officials called it the largest such outbreak in state history.
Marler Clark represented 34 of the people most-effected by the outbreak, including the family of an 11-year-old sixth-grader who spent six days in the hospital with Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), which frequently leads to kidney failure.
An epidemiological report blamed the outbreak on homemade butter served to students as a classroom demonstration. The butter was not pasteurized.