50 million dollar lawsuit

[PetsRus]

Ok I am worked up about the dog food recall, I feed my dogs the food as I stated before. BUT there is a woman on the news who's cat died and now she is trying to sue for $50,000,000.00. Come on. My dogs are acting fine but still even if something did happen I would want some type of action taken against them but don't you think that is a little bit much???????? She wasn't even crying on the news report just talking. I would be hysterical.......

[Pup Cleaner]

our culture

Some people are so litiginous! That's really embarassing. No wonder our courts are so backed up.
sharon

[Sweetpea]

That's so ridiculous. People will find any way to take advantage of a situtation. I wander what the 50 million dollars will cover due to her loss? I guess that's the price of her grief. It's almost like she's making money off of her poor pet.

[sheilabgroomer]

I thought when a pet animal was involved in a lawsuit the only punitive damages that could be awarded would be the worth of the animal, so unless this is some special kitty????? Maybe it is a class action suit, I don't know but it kinda irritates me when people start lawyering up before the crisis is even over. It seems like they are just trying to pad their pockets. Of course I could be wrong, I often am..lol

[DAPER DAWG]

Was it just for her or was it class action?

Could it be the total amount for ALL of the owners in the worl affected. That would make more sense, but if it's just for the individual it's ridiculous.

It depends too if the company was willingly doing something knowingly that caused the problems.

[jovi]

I am also pretty upset about the food because my 2 yr old dog eats the Nutro brand. He is acting fine no symptoms at all but I took him to the vet yesterday to have a full liver and kidney blood panel run and his liver rating is off the chart. My vet said that I would not have known this until it might have been to late to treat, but since we caught it early he feels he will come out of it okay. He is at the vets hooked up to machines. The bills will be high-thank god for pet health insurance!! I blame the food!! The lawsuit as I understand it is a class action suit that will allow all pet owners who are suffering a loss or high vet bills to get a share of the money. I have no intention of suing, you cannot put a price on the life of my animals. We live in a sue happy society - what the company did was terrible knowing that the test animals were dying but yet waiting 3 weeks to recall the food!! That to me is B.S. All I want and am focused on is for my dog to get well. Of course he will never eat any of those brands on the recall list ever again. My vet has suggested that I stay away from all those foods for a real long time!!

[k9stylist1968]

The majority of the foods on the recall list were VOLUNTARY; they were NOT tainted. Just because the foods are made at the same location, does not mean the same formula goes into all the foods. These class action suits, IMO, are mostly BS. Look at all the people who capitolized on the suits against drug companies. People who BENEFITTED from the drugs and had none of the ill-effects got free money because they'd taken those drugs. Like all the obese people on Phen-Fen who had heart problems.... Well, DUH--I'm a big girl (working on not being so big), and I know that being obese compromises the heart. So the odds are they had underlying heart issues anyway, and some portion of the drug combination may have increased the heart rate, hastening the damage. But can you honestly PROVE that the heart problems were caused by the drug and not the fact that the people taking it were fat???

Before the days of these class action lawsuits, the drug Wellbutrin was recalled after a handful (a small but statistically-significant percent) of people taking the drug developed seizures. Instead of permanently discontinuing the drug and paying out a ridiculously large class action settlement, the manufacturer pulled it off the shelves and did further research to find out WHY those particular people had a bad reaction when the majority benefitted. Turns out ALL who had the seizures had a past history of anorexia and/or bulimia. Result? Drug back on market, benefitting those who need it, with a warning not to prescribe to those with history of eating disorders.

This recall/class action suit is going to cause a mass hysteria and "blame the food" syndrome. Any pet that ever consumed one of the recalled brands of food (whether it's among the actually tainted ones or not), that suddenly became ill and/or died, is going to be blamed on the food. The Lawrence, KS animal shelter just euthanized 30 cats that became ill. Now we all know that diseases spread like wildfire in animal shelters--but because they HAPPENED to feed some of the sick cats the recalled foods, the local news is blaming the food.... This is going to get ridiculous.

[Poodlefluff]

This whole food recall thing seems a little strange. Makes me think conspiracy theory. First there was bad Spinach, now bad Peanut Butter, Now are pets are getting bad Food. What next bird flu in our chickens? It is scary.

[PetsRus]

I can't find it on the internet. It was like on Nightline or something like that. It didn't mention class action with this woman and she is in the US. I did find another on the net about a class action suit filed in Canada for $50 million.

[ldoonan]

Litiginous vs. Irresponsible

The high dollar numbers on the lawsuits gain recognition and public awareness. There are still people and stores out there who are not aware of the recall. Now it will be on MORE news stations and will get more press because there's a dollar amount.

How, you may ask, are there still people and worse, stores who have not heard about this? Because the vendors have not all contacted their customers. THAT IS OBSCENE AND IRRESPONSIBLE. THAT is where punitive damages come in.

Don't blame the pet owner who's pet died as a result of someone else's irresponsibility, and worse, callous approach to the issue. Everyone who feeds any of those foods is now at risk, potentially, and will likely incur high vet bills to be sure and safe. And some will still lose their pets to this food, who haven't even realized it yet.

Wellbutrin did a good thing, Phen-Fen didn't. Phen-Fen promoted the drug as SAFE, knowing it wasn't for the very population it targeted.

Large companies will only listen to lawsuits to make changes and prepare better oversights. Otherwise it's more expensive for them to change their practices that cover the losses they have to pay out every once in a while. Every person, pet and situation has a price tag on it, and they weigh that amount against change management. There are very few ethics in corporations.

(I am not a doctor, lawyer or scientist, or in any way involved in the legal profession. I do have over 17 years experience working in pharmaceutical marketing and education.) Mistakes and accidents do occur. How they are handled determines any legal action.

[Maggy]

Thats a good point, my parents hadn't heard of it as of last night (wed). I was on the phone and my mom about hung up on me saying there's a massive dog food recall and she has to go watch about it on the news. I briefed her on it and kept talking about whatever we were discussing before, since I know she doesn't feed the dogs or cats any canned food.

She lives in a major metro area (outside of DC) and is what I would consider a 'dog person' involved in beagle rescue, very up to date on all the animal's care, etc. and she hadn't heard of it yet!

Then again, she usually goes to bed immediately when american idol ends, maybe that has something to do with it. lol

[Soap]

Jovi I am so sorry about your dog. Please update us on how she is making out, ok?

[diamienono]

There is a big article on msn about the recall. They are saying that some dog food manf. put feces in the food. GROSS! And road kill and zoo animal carcas. YUCK.

[ginnybaci]

I couldn't find that article. Do you have the link????

[sheilabgroomer]

There is a big article on msn about the recall. They are saying that some dog food manf. put feces in the food. GROSS! And road kill and zoo animal carcas. YUCK.

Diamienono on the old board there was a thread that detailed all of the things that are ALLOWED to be in dog food. Rendered dogs and cats were on the list and lots of other things that were unimaginable!!! It makes me sick thinking about it.