Jalisco, Alta-Dena, Market Named : 27 Allege Listeria Poisoning in Lawsuit
Twenty-seven people in two Ventura County communities have filed suit against Jalisco Mexican Products Inc., Alta-Dena Dairies and a Moorpark grocery store, accusing the three of negligence in connection with the recent wave of bacterial illness in Southern California.
The suit, filed Monday in Ventura County Superior Court by two Simi Valley attorneys, attempts to hold the dairy, the cheese company and the Berakat Market responsible for sickness, lost wages and general damages allegedly related to the consumption of tainted Jalisco cheese.
The suit is one of a swelling number of product-liability claims naming the Artesia-based Jalisco company, which closed in June when potentially deadly Listeria monocytogenes bacteria were discovered in its cheese.
80 Deaths From Bacteria
Officials at the state Department of Health Services say the bacteria is responsible for more than 250 illnesses in California this year. More than 80 people have died, most of them in the Los Angeles area.
Attorney Edward B. Artman, who prepared the suit with Leslie F. Nadasi, said the plaintiffs are residents of Moorpark or Fillmore. All claim to have become ill after eating Jalisco cheese. Artman said the plaintiffs include three pregnant women who fear that the bacteria has affected their unborn children. Other plaintiffs claim that the cheese has caused fainting spells, nausea, headaches and general weakness. No deaths are mentioned in the suit.
Artman said many of the alleged victims claim to have regularly purchased the tainted cheese at the Berakat Market during June, when the epidemic peaked. The suit, which asks for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, names several officers of the Jalisco company as co-defendants. Artman said the Alta-Dena company was named because it produced the milk that Jalisco used to make its cheese.
Artman said he will attempt to prove that the market sold Jalisco cheese both before and after it was recalled on June 13.
A representative of the market could not be reached for comment.
