It’s not the first, and it’s a safe bet it’s not the last, but a lawsuit has been filed against Diamond Pet Foods in response to a case of salmonellosis in a New Jersey infant. The lawsuit claims (probably correctly) that the infant acquired Salmonella from contaminated dog food that was in the household. The infant was hospitalized for three days but recovered. The lawsuit, one of at least eight that have been filed, claims negligence and fraudulent representation, and is seeking over $75000 in compensation.

In reality, it’s hard to consider a company liable simply for Salmonella contamination. Various practices can be used to reduce the risk and to detect contamination when it occurs, but these will never be 100% effective. Standard hygiene practices that are recommended to reduce the risk of exposing people (especially high risk people) to any pathogens that might be found in pet food must therefore always be used. It’s hard to say what degree of responsibility needs to be placed on consumers versus companies, since companies need to do their best and people need to use common sense.

From my completely non-legal standpoint, the issues of negligence and liability come in when:

  • A company has inadequate facilities that do not conform to standard requirements to reduce the risk of contamination (e.g. duct tape and cardboard in food processing equipment, as per the FDA report).
  • A company has an inadequate quality control program.
  • A company knows there’s a problem and doesn’t take prompt and appropriate action to correct it.

Based on what information has been released (including the relatively damning FDA report that cited lack of microbial analysis of certain ingredients, lack of hand hygiene facilities and the use of duct tape, cardboard and other non-cleanable materials in the plant) combined with some questionable communications strategies, it certainly seems like a case can be made here.