Sodexo Faces Punitive Damages Claims in E. Coli Outbreak Suits

Food services company Sodexo Management Inc. faces punitive damages claims stemming from an E. coli outbreak at two California Marine Corps bases, after a federal court in California allowed eight plaintiffs to amend their complaints.

Vincent Grano and the other Marine recruits alleged they were sickened in 2017 from undercooked beef served at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot and Camp Pendleton in San Diego.

Several were left with kidney injuries that may require transplantation later in life, and two now ambulate with prosthetic hips. None were older than 20 at the time of the outbreak, and all lost their military careers, according to a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

The outbreak sickened more than 230 recruits, but not all to the same severity, the filing said.

The plaintiffs sufficiently alleged a conscious disregard of risk, the standard for punitive damages under Calfornia law, the court said Tuesday. They also alleged the risk of food-borne illness was knowable to Sodexo and that the company had a long-standing pattern of inaction in addressing the risk, Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel said.

Sodexo employees and management officials had specific knowledge of the risks posed by undercooked beef and failed to review their meat-cooking processes over the course of a 15 to 17 year period leading up to the outbreak, the plaintiffs allege.

Sodexo didn’t address the mishandling of raw ground beef patties prior to cooking, failed to assure that final hamburger cook temperatures were consistently taken and recorded, and failed to assure that a safe combination of cook time and temperature was in use, the proposed amended lawsuits say.

At this juncture, the court’s task isn’t to award punitive damages ascertain whether they are warranted, but only to consider whether the proposed amended pleadings allege facts that would constitute a valid claim for punitive damages, it noted.

Marler Clark LLP represented the plaintiffs. Rodolff Law Firm APC and Koeller, Nebeker, Carlson & Haluck represented Sodexo.

The case is Grano v. Sodexo, Inc., S.D. Cal., No. 3:18-cv-01818, 8/18/20.