On Tuesday, November 3, 2009, I made a presentation at the Fourth International Conference on Food Safety and Quality. The presentation was one of two keynote speeches given that morning, which kicked off this two-day conference. The topic of this year's conference was Global Food Safety. Marler Clark was one of the sponsors of the conference, and Bill Marler had...
In this public comment on a proposed change in policy by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, I offer strong support for the idea of requiring all meat and poultry plants to provide written responses to noncompliance records, or NR's, that the Agency's inspection personnel issue. An NR is the way the Agency documents a plant's failure to comply...
"Why Hepatitis A Vaccinations are Bad for (My) Business," appeared in the July/August 2002 issue of Food Quality Magazine. It begins: "Let's be honest: as an attorney who makes a substantial portion of his living by filing lawsuits against restaurants, it's not in my financial interest to have the National Restaurant Association (NRA) change its position on mandatory hepatitis-A vaccinations...
"An E. coli O157:H7 Outbreak at a Chain Restaurant: A Case Study on How Easily Legal Liability Can Spread to a Franchisor" was written for the February 2004 Law Journal Newsletter's Franchising Business and Law Alert. A quote from the article: "Insurance can be purchased to cover the risk of litigation, to hire attorneys, and to pay the cost of...
Written for the February, 2005 Food Safety In-Sight newsletter by Environ Health Associates, Inc, "Food Claims and Litigation" begins, "In a perfect food safety world, operators of food facilities would place the health of the consumer above all else. Science-based foodborne illness prevention systems would be in place from farm to table and government in partnership with industry would effectively...
"Separating the Chaff from the Wheat: How to determine the strength of a foodborne illness claim," is a paper presented at the May 2005 Defense Research Institute meeting on food liability. In it, Dave Babcock and I use case studies to provide examples for how legitimate foodborne illness claims can be distinguished from illegitimate, or "bogus" claims. We provide information...
In my first article in a series for ID Access, "An Introduction to Product Liability Law," I introduce readers to product liability law and the concepts behind it, beginning with: When a person is injured by a defective product that is unreasonably dangerous or unsafe, the injured person may have a claim or cause of action against the company that...
"Product Liability: A Brief History of Its Early Origins" begins: Product liability law evolved from contract law, with the first decisions strongly favoring manufacturers. For a very long time, the "general rule" was that a manufacturer could not be sued, even for negligence, by someone with whom he had no contract. This was called the "rule of privity," and...
The concept of strict product liability is addressed in "Product Liability: How It Turned Strict," one of a series of articles for ID Access that address the legal risks faced by manufacturers and food distributors: "Under the new rule of strict liability, to hold a manufacturer liable, a person injured while using a product need only show that: (1) the...
In "Chain of Distribution Liability: Tag, You're It," one of a series of articles that address the legal risks faced by manufacturers and distributors of food products, I explain chain of distribution liability in simple terms: If you had a role in the distribution of a defective product that ends up causing an injury, in half of the states you...
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