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Salmonella Outbreak in Egg Farm Results in Safety Violations

An egg farm in Iowa that is at the center of a nationwide salmonella food poisoning epidemic has a long history of health safety, environmental and employment violations.

Austin Jack DeCoster heads the family-run firm that owns Wright County Egg, one of the two Iowa farms involved in the recall.  Over the years, his company has been reprimanded, paid fines and faced multiple complaints over its health and safety violations.  The fact that this company continued to supply eggs even with all these violations to its credit, points to serious loopholes in our food safety system.

Not only does the DeCoster family own Wright County Egg, it also has links to the other farm in the scandal, Hillandale Farms which recalled approximately 170,000,000 eggs distributed to 14 states.  That recall came after one Salmonella outbreak was traced to take eggs from Hillandale farms.

As the Food and Drug Administration continues its investigation into the source of the salmonella outbreak, the DeCoster family-run operation has found itself in the position of having to provide answers, probably one of the first times that the company has come close to being held accountable for violations.  USA Today has an account of the large number of violations that the company has managed to rack up.  These include everything from health and safety violations to workplace discrimination, sexual harassment, and environmental safety complaints.

In 1996, Decoster was fined more than $2 million for health and workplace safety violations at its farm in Turner, Maine.  Officials then described the facility as a “dangerous and oppressive sweatshop.”  Inspectors found that workers had been made to handle feed and dead chickens with their bare hands, were forced to live in dirty trailers, and were exposed to dangerous bacteria.

In 1999, the company paid out another $5 million in settlement of an unpaid overtime class-action lawsuit involving 3,000 workers.

In 2001, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that DeCoster repeatedly violated environment laws, especially at its hog farming operations.  The court ruled that the company could not expand its hog farming operations in the state.

In 2001, the company settled a complaint brought by the Equal Employment’ Opportunity Commission alleging sexual harassment at workplace.  The company claimed that the firm employed undocumented female workers from Mexico who were subjected to a “sexually hostile workplace.  ” The complaint alleged that these workers were assaulted by supervisors. Then company paid more than $1.5 million to settle those claims.

California food poisoning lawyers hope this salmonella epidemic will lead to better oversight of companies like Decoster’s.  New egg safety laws went into effect in July, and these now require stronger testing for salmonella in chicken farms.  The laws stop short of vaccination of hens for salmonella, which have been found to dramatically reduce the incidence of poisoning in countries like the UK.  In the US however, the FDA doesn’t believe there is enough evidence to indicate that mandatory vaccination of all hens will reduce incidence of salmonella poisoning.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of product liability and food poisoning. Please visit our website at http://www.robertreeveslaw.com/. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us at contact@robertreeveslaw.com.

The Reeves Law Group is not representing any party in the matters discussed in this posting.

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