Class-action peanut butter suit filed in Seattle

James Winston Daniels II said he never would have thought that the peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich he took with him to his welding job would make him sick.

But after being ill for more than two weeks, the Bellingham man saw a news report about the nationwide recall of peanut butter contaminated by salmonella bacteria. So he called a lawyer — Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in food-borne-illness cases.

Tuesday, Marler filed a federal lawsuit against Nebraska-based ConAgra, Inc. on behalf of Daniels and a Kent woman, Linda Lee Oswald, seeking class-action status that Marler says could include more than 3,000 people nationwide who may have been sickened.

"I've never sued anybody in my life," said Daniels. "But this is scary. Makes you wonder what food you can eat; what's safe and what's not. There should be better quality control."

On Feb 14, the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers not to eat any Peter Pan or Great Value brand peanut butter in jars bearing product code 2111, which came from a ConAgra plant in Georgia. All products with that code, purchased since May 2006, have been recalled.

The lawsuit against ConAgra was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Last week, Marler filed separate lawsuits against ConAgra in New York and Missouri on behalf of others who fell ill.

The company has not commented on the lawsuits except to say consumer safety is its top priority.

Marler said he hopes the latest lawsuit will include all those who had typical cases of salmonella, a bacterial infection that can cause diarrhea, cramps, vomiting, fever and chills.

Most people who get salmonella recover within a week or 10 days. More severe cases, Marler said, such as those involving hospitalization or death, will be handled separately.

Since last week, Marler said, some 3,000 people from more than 40 states have contacted his Seattle firm, Marler Clark, primarily known for representing people who are stricken by E. coli from tainted food such as hamburgers or spinach. He had to hire extra help to answer phone calls and e-mails, he said.

This outbreak is unusual because it took place over so many months. In many cases, Marler contends, people became sick, then recovered, then relapsed when they unknowingly ate their tainted peanut butter again.

"This has been one of the oddest outbreaks I've seen in 14 years of doing these cases," he said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially says that nearly 300 people in 39 states, including four people in Washington, have been sickened since August. Not all cases have been linked to contaminated peanut butter. The CDC has attributed no deaths to the outbreak.

Donn Moyer, spokesman for the state Department of Health, said cases aren't officially counted until epidemiologists have verified that a person had the implicated strain of salmonella — in this case, Salmonella Tennessee.

But Marler contends that there has been "an enormous miscount" because most people who got sick were not tested and did not suspect their peanut butter until last week's recall. And he said he is checking reports of four suspicious deaths in other states that could be related.

Marler said he plans to test about 1,500 jars of peanut butter held by families reporting illness.

Carol M. Ostrom: 206-464-2249 or costrom@seattletimes.com. Information from The Associated Press was included in this report.