Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘food safety’

“Wal-Mart ends food donations to charity”

Is the nation’s largest grocer being ignorant or overcautious? Or has it reckoned that even a “gross negligence” standard will not prevent it from being a target after some future incident of food poisoning?

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the nation’s largest food retailer, said Thursday it will no longer donate nearly-expired or expired food to local groups feeding the hungry….

Olan James, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the policy, which applies to all 1,224 Wal-Marts, 1,929 Supercenters and 558 Sam’s Clubs, is an attempt to protect the corporation from liability in case someone who eats the donated food gets sick….

Ernie Brown, a spokesman for Sacramento’s Senior Gleaners, which received about 25,000 pounds of food in 2005 from Sam’s Club on Greenback Lane in Citrus Heights, said most food is fine to eat for days after the “sell-by” date.

He said Wal-Mart’s concerns about liability seem misplaced in light of the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, a federal law passed in 1996 offering food donors wide-ranging protections from civil lawsuits or criminal prosecution. The law states that donors can be held liable only in instances of “gross negligence.”

“Lord, we get millions and millions of pounds from Raley’s and Bel-Air and Albertson’s, and they don’t have a problem understanding the law,” Brown said. “Why don’t Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club understand the law?”

The food will be thrown out instead. (Todd Milbourn, Sacramento Bee, Jan. 6). More: Dvorak Uncensored, Jan. 11.

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UK roundup

Sainsbury’s, the British grocery chain, says it will have to go back on a plan to sell Christmas puddings with “lucky sixpences” inside because of health and safety regs under which they are regarded as a choking hazard; instead it will attach the coins to “collectors’ cards” and suggest that customers place them under the plate or placemat of a lucky family member. “[G]ood luck charms have been added to Christmas puddings for more than 500 years.” (David Derbyshire, “Unlucky sixpences miss out on Christmas”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 18). For an analogous U.S. story involving the New Orleans specialty, “king cake”, see Feb. 1-3, 2002. The police force in Derbyshire, England, has tested its dogs to see whether their barking is in compliance with the Control of Noise at Work Regulations being introduced next April; the canines’ level of noisiness barely passed muster under the new standard, and modifications such as earplugs for police may needed when use of the dogs in anti-crime work combines with another source of noise such as that of a crowd. (Nick Britten, “Police take the lead on barking regulations”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 27). For more on British and EU noise regulations, see Nov. 10, 2005 (kids’ playing); Sept. 2, 2005 (Army tanks); Jan. 12, 2004 (orchestras); Mar. 8-10, 2002 (bagpipes); Dec. 22-25, 2000 (military brass bands and gunfire during infantry training). In Worcester, England, teenager Natasha Hughes, who is accused of grievous bodily harm directed at another woman and was charged with violating her bail conditions, will not have to wear an electronic monitoring anklet after she successfully argued that the device violated her fashion sense and looked bad with skirts. (Nick Britten, “You can’t tag me. . . I like to wear skirts”, Daily Telegraph, Nov. 11). For a similar argument made in this country, see Dec. 4, 2000 (exotic dancer). And the following exchange was heard on the floor of the House of Lords this Wednesday:

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate: My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware of the case that I read about recently in which there were three main suspects for a crime: a rich lawyer, a poor lawyer and a tooth fairy? Needless to say, the rich lawyer was arrested because the other two were figments of the imagination.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, it does the House no credit to do anti-lawyer jokes.

(Hansard, Nov. 16). Reader Bob Clarke, of Birmingham, U.K. who called this exchange to our attention, writes: “I don’t think that my learned Lord should drop his day job and start being a stand-up comedian. He made the same joke in 2000“.

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Update: custard finger-finder sues

Clarence Stowers, the North Carolina man who gained notoriety (see May 9) for refusing to return the employee’s fingertip he found in a mouthful of frozen custard, thus preventing doctors from reattaching it to its owner — it was more valuable to Stowers as evidence, you see — has now filed the inevitable lawsuit against Kohl’s Frozen Custard and the Carvel Corporation, which made the mixing machine. Stowers says he suffered post-traumatic syndrome and nightmares and wants money for that. People who have nightmares about Stowers himself, however, are out of luck lawsuit-wise. (“Man Who Bit Finger In Custard Sues”, AP/CBS News, Oct. 7).

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Lawyers target milk

Jonathan Turley is fond of claiming (without any real basis) that litigation reform advocates make up stories to promote tort reform. The reality is that the plaintiffs’ bar provides us with stories far more entertaining than any fictional Winnebago lawsuit.

Remember the day of June 21, 2005, because that’s the day that a sufficient number of the world’s problems were solved that a “public-interest group” has nothing better to do than to troll for plaintiffs to sue the dairy industry for not putting warning labels on milk about lactose intolerance. This is yet another publicity stunt of Dan Kinburn and the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, over 95% of whom are not physicians; last time they asked for publicity, we gave it to them. The American Medical Association has called PCRM a “fringe organization” that uses “unethical tactics” and is “interested in perverting medical science.” (via Taylor, who is waiting for vegetarians to sue over beef commercials)

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Clarence Stowers

Should we name him this site’s Man of the Year? Last week, after finding the freshly cut fingertip of an employee in his frozen custard at a Wilmington, N.C. dessert stand, Mr. Stowers “refus[ed] to return the evidence so it could be reattached. And now it’s too late for doctors to do anything for 23-year-old Brandon Fizer.”

Soon after Stowers found the finger in a mouthful of chocolate soft-serve he bought Sunday at Kohl’s Frozen Custard in Wilmington, he put it in his freezer at home, taking it out only occasionally to show to television cameras.

He refused to give it to the shop’s owner, and refused to give it to a doctor who was treating Fizer, who accidentally stuck his hand in a mixing machine and had his right index finger lopped off at the first knuckle.

Medical experts say an attempt to reattach a severed finger can generally be made within six hours.

But according to the shop’s management, Stowers wouldn’t give it back when he was in the store 30 minutes after the accident.

“The general manager attempted to retrieve it and rush it to the hospital,” reads a statement posted Thursday on Kohl’s Web site. “Unfortunately, the customer refused to give it to her and declared that he would be calling the TV stations and an attorney as he exited the store.”

What attorney decided to represent Mr. Stowers? Glad you asked; it’s Lee Andrews of Greensboro, N.C., who

wouldn’t say if a lawsuit against Kohl’s is planned, saying he needed “to get some more facts.”

But Andrews said his client is concerned about possible disease in the fingertip and kept it because he wanted someone to test it for “all the diseases that are out here now.”

“He’s upset to the point that he’s been debilitated to some degree,” Andrews said. “Emotionally, it’s been very upsetting to him.”

(“Fight over finger found in custard”, AP/CNN, May 6).

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The killer cookie

“I fully realize that there are dangers and risks to which I may be exposed by participating in Cookie Decorating” begins the waiver and release required by the University of Pittsburgh for a particular extracurricular activity. (Tip of the Overlawyered hat to J.M.)

Perhaps this explains the real motivation behind the evisceration of the raison d’être of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster; Jonah Goldberg explores the new political correctness.

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Trauma from seeing bottled fly: C$340,000

Neither Waddah (Martin) Mustapha, of Windsor, Ontario nor his wife Lynn consumed the dead fly they found in a bottle of Culligan bottled water, nor did they drink any of the water that had come in contact with it, since they discovered the fly before opening the bottle. They were so traumatized, however, that a court has just applied the calamine of cash to their psychic wounds to the extent of a third of a million dollars (Canadian). Mr. Mustapha, a hairstylist, said he had nightmares and lost sleep after the fly incident; he “also testified that he lost his sense of humour and became argumentative and edgy,” among other ill consequences. Let’s hope the couple never goes on a picnic. (Chris Thompson, “Man wins $340,000 in bottled fly lawsuit”, Windsor Star, Apr. 23). Update Feb. 17, 2007: appeals court reverses judgment and awards $30K in costs to defendant Culligan; May 23, 2008: Supreme Court upholds Culligan win.

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