CHICAGO — A new lawsuit against McDonald's and Taylor Farms Colorado was filed Tuesday on behalf of a Colorado mother and her 10-year-old daughter who said they got E. coli after eating McDonald's Quarter Pounders.
McDonald's has not yet responded to the lawsuit.
Geovanna Zambrano, 29, and her daughter live in El Paso County. Zambrano said on Oct. 17, she bought her daughter and herself two Quarter Pounders from a McDonald's in Colorado Springs. The next day, Zambrano said both of them started vomiting, having diarrhea and intense stomach cramps. They went to the hospital and were diagnosed with viral gastroenteritis, which the Mayor Clinic defines as an intestinal infection.
They became sick within the same time frame as a nationwide E. coli outbreak linked to the fast food chain in late October. At least 104 people in 14 states got sick and 34 people were hospitalized, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One person in Colorado died and four people developed a potentially life-threatening kidney disease complication.
The Zambrano suit alleges strict liability and negligence on the part of McDonald's and Taylor Farms Colorado.
The FDA, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health departments conducted an investigation into the source of the outbreak. The agencies linked the E. coli cases to to yellow onions distributed by California-based Taylor Farms, served raw on Quarter Pounders at McDonald’s restaurants in Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming, among other states. Taylor Farms initiated a voluntary recall of its yellow onions on Oct. 22.
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US closes E. coli investigation of onions in McDonald's Quarter Pounders
Federal health leaders and those in Colorado didn’t find the E. coli strain in onions it tested in the Centennial State, but concluded that evidence pointed to recalled yellow onions as the likely source of the outbreak.
"“The most basic duty of the companies that grow, package, cook and prepare our food is to not make us sick,” Morgan & Morgan attorneys John Morgan and Aaron Clite said. “We allege that McDonald’s, which touts itself as the world’s largest fast-food chain, has failed to meet that baseline expectation. Ms. Zambrano and her young child are dealing with the consequences of the alleged negligence of McDonald’s and Taylor Farms, which include not only their acute digestive symptoms but the potential to develop long-term health issues."
The Morgan & Morgan law firm has experience with other cases against big-name food companies, including Jif, Denny's, Chipotle and Boar's Head, which had an outbreak of listeria earlier this year.
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Class-action lawsuit filed against McDonald's after E. coli outbreak
A Greeley man was the first in Colorado to file suit against McDonald's over the E. coli outbreak.
Another lawyer filed a class-action lawsuit against McDonald's on behalf of a Florida man who claims he experienced many of the symptoms associated with an E. coli infection after getting a Quarter Pounder. The suit seeks damages exceeding $5 million for customers across the country, saying that McDonald's breached its duty to disclose a risk of contamination.
"These people would not have bought Quarter Pounders had they known that there was a risk that they might be contaminated with E. coli," attorney Roy Willey said.
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