There are now at least 137 individuals pressing claims against the maker of WanaBana Applesauce with Cinnamon, the Ecuadorian product imported in to the United States that was contaminated with high levels of lead that may have been introduced into the cinnamon prior to being added to the applesauce pouches. According to one of the national food poisoning lawyer who represents more than two dozen of the victims: “This has been a tragedy of errors since inception. The victims are nearly all young children who enjoyed the applesauce pouches so many kids enjoy. It is a well known product, whatever the brand, for getting kids to eat their proverbial ‘apple a day.’ And now, with highly elevated lead levels in their blood, these children face uncertain futures. Lead poisoning is not safe at any level, but these highly elevated levels can cause permanent damage, including diminished IQ, lower test scores, irritability, social interaction issues, and even increased likelihood of violent behavior and involvement in crime. In short, lead poisoning is dangerous and long-term. And the worst part is that the company did not test for the presence of lead before incorporating the cinnamon into the applesauce pouches and it was allowed to get onto the shelves at stores in the U.S. without any safety checks.”
WanaBana is currently facing a number of lawsuits in various states, while other claimants are waiting in the wings to determine if a new case should be filed at this time. “This is standard practice,” says another food poisoning lawyer, Tony Coveny, familiar with the cases. “We do not always file all of the cases, focusing on one or two so as to get the discovery we need to find out what really happened.” Coveny noted that most brands of applesauce are not implicated in this outbreak, and that only WanaBana sourced applesauce with Cinnamon has been identified as a culprit at this time.
Most of the cases that have been filed so far are against WanaBana, but a significant number have (or intend to) name Dollar Tree stores, the store that is believe to have sold the majority of the contaminated product. In some cases, there is a fight as to whether the cases should be allowed to proceed in state courts or if the jurisdictional issues require that they be heard in federal courts. That debate is ongoing.
Will the victims be compensated? It remains unclear how much money will be available to cover the claims of the children who have been deleteriously impacted, whether all available insurance policies will be implicated in one or both of the personal injury and commercial loss litigations, and whether judgment can be collected outside the United States from the Ecuadorian entities. “These are all issues that we will address in the various court cases,” says Coveny, who has been involved in a very large number of contaminated imported foods cases over the decades – his firm is one of the only firms in the nation that exclusively handles food poisoning and had for years.
As for now, the WanaBana lead lawsuit attorneys are still accepting new clients who have had their children tested for elevated levels of lead. The statute of limitations in most states, to bring a claim, is two years from the time of the injury, so nearly all the potential victims should still able to bring a claim. Victims in Tennessee, Louisiana, and Kentucky, however, should know that they must file their claim within one year of becoming ill, while some (like in Florida and Wyoming) “may” have up to four years to do so.
What are these cases worth? According to Ron Simon, it is too early to tell, but ho noted that his experts agree that these cases are serious, that the victims suffer for years, and that the impact over the next few years will affect these children’s entire life. Diminished cognitive development is something that is hard to quantify, but something the courts and juries across America will have to do in the coming years.
