July 8, 2022
Posted by: OFT Food Safety & Injury Lawyers
Today the Listeria Lawyers at the OFT Food Safety & Injury firm, in association with The Cochran Firm South Florida, filed their first lawsuit in Florida arising out of the Listeria outbreak that has been linked to ice cream manufactured, sold, and distributed by Big Olaf Creamery based in Sarasota, Florida. Our client, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, was pregnant when she ate ice cream made by Big Olaf Creamery at Beverly’s Ice Cream shop in the Hyatt Regency located in Clearwater, Florida. After returning home to Massachusetts, she became seriously ill and was hospitalized. Tragically, her baby boy died as a result of the illness, which was determined by Whole Genome Sequencing to be caused by the strain of Listeria linked to the Big Olaf Creamery ice cream she ate at Beverly’s.
Big Olaf Creamery and Mega Ammos LLC (the company that owns Beverly’s) have been named as defendants. The lawsuit was filed in the Circuit Court for the 6th Judicial District in Pinellas County, Florida. Copies of the complaint are available upon request.
Pregnant women and the babies they carry are at particular risk from Listeria infections, including miscarriage and preterm birth. Ryan Osterholm, who previously represented victims of the notorious Blue Bell ice cream Listeria outbreak that killed three people, says his clients want answers to help stop future outbreaks. “Unfortunately, we’ve seen this before with ice cream. It gets in the facility, and if you’re not doing deep cleans often enough, it sticks around. That’s how Listeria proliferates. From there, it gets in the food and it makes people very sick. Then people get hospitalized, and sometimes people die.”
According to Osterholm, “It is important that producers proactively seek out and destroy Listeria in production facilities.” According to the CDC, illnesses associated with the Florida-based Big Olaf ice cream outbreak stretch back as far as January 2021.
The OFT Food Safety & Injury law firm has extensive experience representing people sickened in Listeria outbreaks, and our lawyers have recovered millions for them. We will be seeking maximum compensation for all of our clients. Anyone who may have been sickened in this outbreak is encouraged to contact us for for a free consultation about joining the lawsuit.
