Marler Clark sued Walmart on behalf of a Michigan family on August 22, 2012. The lawsuit was brought by the mother of 2 children who became ill with Salmonella infections after eating contaminated cantaloupes sold by Walmart in July of 2012. The lawsuit was filed hours before public health officials announced that the cantaloupes sold by Walmart had been grown by Owensville, Indiana-based Chamberlain Farms. The farm was added as a defendant in the lawsuit shortly after the initial lawsuit was filed.
Chamberlain Farms recalled all cantaloupes from the marketplace after a joint investigation by state, local and federal public health agencies identified the cantaloupes as the source of a multistate Salmonella outbreak that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says resulted in at least 261 Salmonella cases from 24 states. 94 people were hospitalized due to the severity of their Salmonella infections, and 3 deaths are attributed to eating Salmonella-contaminated cantaloupe.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Salmonella-contaminated cantaloupes grown by Chamberlain Farms were initially shipped to Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin, although further shipment to other states where Salmonella cases were reported was likely. On August 28, 2012, the CDC announced that testing on samples collected at Chamberlain Farms had shown the presence of Salmonella Typhimurium bacteria with a DNA fingerprint matching the outbreak strain.
Marler Clark's Salmonella attorneys represented additional victims of the Salmonella outbreak traced to Chamberlain Farms cantaloupes. All claims were resolved within months of the outbreak.
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