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Lawsuit seeks damages for Salmonella victims

SEATTLE, WA -- A lawsuit was filed today against Linh’s Bakery and Deli, on behalf of the Cheung family of Palmyra, Virginia. On April 7, 2001, the Cheung family purchased meals from the Bakery and Deli. Each family member who consumed food from he Bakery and Deli suffered nausea, cramps, diarrhea, fever, and fatigue within hours after eating. Each was also forced to seek medical care at the local Martha Jefferson Hospital emergency room. Especially hard hit by the infections were three-year-old Brandon Cheung and eighty-eight year old Yee Cheung. Yee was ultimately hospitalized, and possibly suffered permanent kidney damage. All family members of the Cheung family eventually tested positive for the salmonella bacteria.

The Henrico County Health Department closed Linh’s Bakery and Deli after food made there sickened nearly 250 people. The health department traced the outbreak to raw eggs in a sandwich spread prepared at the Bakery and Deli. “After all the salmonella outbreaks associated with raw eggs, the use of raw eggs without the knowledge of customers should never have happened,” said, William Marler, attorney for the Cheungs.

The Cheungs are represented by the Seattle, Washington law firm, Marler Clark, whose attorneys are nationally known for their successful representation of foodborne illness victims. Marler Clark has retained Ward & Klein, Chartered, a law firm with offices in Arlington, Virginia, as co-counsel.

Approximately 40,000 cases of salmonellosis are reported in the United States annually. Because milder cases are not diagnosed or reported, the actual number of infections has been estimated to be twenty or more times greater. It is also estimated that approximately 1,000 persons in the United States die each year with acute salmonellosis. For more information about salmonella, please visit www.about-salmonella.com

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Background: Marler Clark (www.marlerclark.com) has a successful history of representing victims of foodborne illness. Noteworthy awards achieved by the firms’ partners include William Marler’s $15.6 million settlement for Brianne Kiner, a child infected with E. coli O157:H7 during the 1993 Jack in the Box outbreak. In 1998, Marler Clark resolved cases arising from the Odwalla Juice E. coli outbreak for $12 million, for five families whose children were severely injured after consuming contaminated apple juice manufactured and sold by Odwalla. Ward & Klein co-counseled with Marler Clark on the claims of a Maryland family arising from that same outbreak. Most recently, in February 2001, Marler Clark secured a jury verdict of $4.75 million against a Washington state school district for several schoolchildren who were infected with E. coli O157:H7 after eating contaminated meat in a school lunch.

Presently, Marler Clark is lead counsel in actions resulting from E. coli, Salmonella, Shigella, Listeria, and hepatitis A outbreaks in nearly a dozen states.

Marler Clark’s partners also operate Outbreak, Inc., a non-profit business dedicated to training companies on how to avoid foodborne disease outbreaks.

More about the Linh's Bakery Salmonella outbreak can be found in the Case News area of this site.

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