As Food Safety News editor Dan Flynn has reported, lawyers for Austin “Jack” DeCoster and Peter DeCoster, owners and operators of Quality Egg, have recruited some heavy hitters in their
One option the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has pursued since at least 2010 in criminal prosecutions of corporations and officers is to bring charges that do not
It has been a busy past several weeks for public health investigators (and lawyers) and uncomfortable (and sometimes deadly) for food poisoning victims, as well as for the management of
Here are a couple of legal concepts to get your head around before we continue: The Park Doctrine: Also known as the “Responsible Corporate Officer (RCO) Doctrine,” it allows a
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis has received the final reply brief filed on behalf of Austin (Jack) DeCoster and his son, Peter
Just after the federal government put a former food industry CEO in prison for the longest term ever handed down for a food safety-related crime, a top official in the
Sending food industry executives to jail for company food safety violations, even if they did not know about them, might seem a useful way to bring about more compliance, but
As part of a campaign to keep their clients from serving any prison time, appellate attorneys for Austin (“Jack”) and Peter DeCoster are depicting the roles the former egg producers
Whether Austin “Jack” and Peter DeCoster can be jailed under Park Doctrine prosecutions — meaning where the government did not have to show they had any knowledge or intent, let alone
The federal judge who sentenced Austin “Jack” and Peter DeCoster to each serve three months in federal confinement predicted that the two defendants would appeal, and they’ve now proven
In the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, Judge Mark W. Bennett’s courtroom is on the third floor of the federal building dedicated Dec. 29,