Topps Bankruptcy Another Pain For E. Coli Victims

Topps Meat Company, whose recalled meat is responsible for the E. coli illnesses of at least 40 people in the United States, filed for Chapter 7 in New Jersey’s bankruptcy court on November 21. After Topps closed its doors for business less than a week after its October capture of over 20 million pounds of beef for suspected E. coli contamination, attorneys for E. coli victims have been awaiting this bankruptcy filing the way a migraine sufferer waits for a dull headache to turn into full-blown harm.

Despite lawsuits filed last month on behalf of E. coli sufferers, some seeking punitive damages, having to wait for the automatic stay to be lifted in bankruptcy court to pursue litigation will painfully slow the process of getting due compensation to those made seriously ill by the negligent meat company.

Per the voluntary petition filed in the case, Topps lists both its liabilities and assets as between $1-$10 million but estimates that the company will have funds available to pay unsecured creditors. Although the top 20 largest creditor list wasn’t yet available on the docket as of November 23, the voluntary petition lists an estimated number of total creditors at 5,000-10,000. The creditor matrix filed contains names of approximately 5,300 creditors, some of which are E. coli victims. Topps reportedly has $12 million in insurance to cover E. coli claims, but getting to that money will be far from a painless task for attorneys representing E. coli sufferers.

Attorney William Marler of the Seattle firm Marler Clark, who has filed two lawsuits against Topps on behalf of families whose young children were hospitalized (one with serious kidney complications) due to confirmed E. coli infection, says that despite the bankruptcy his clients won’t go away losers. “The bottom line for us is that we intend to make definite our clients are fairly compensated AND we find out when both Topps and the USDA knew about the extent of the E. coli contamination and why the recall took weeks to occur,” Marler says on his blog.

While the E. coli victims wait for the automatic stay to be lifted, many will face their own insurmountable financial debt. Medical treatment for E. coli infection can cost tens of thousands of dollars, even more in cases where kidney disease develops as result of the food poisoning. The truly shadowy thing is that many of these illnesses could have been avoided if Topps had issued its choose after receiving the first confirmed report of E. coli infection linked to their bad beef; instead the company waited and put more people, including young children, in the hospital with life-threatening complications.

Sources

Voluntary Petition and related court documents filed by Topps Meat Company LLC in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of New Jersey, Case No. 07-27196, filed November 21, 2007

Topps files for bankruptcy after massive beef recall, William Marler, November 23, 2007

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