PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Lawyers representing New Seasons Market have filed a $2.7 million lawsuit against a Redmond beef producer accusing the company of negligence for delivering beef tainted with E. coli in 2019, court records show.
Several people were sickened by the bacteria, prompting a wide recall, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
The suit, filed this week in Multnomah County Circuit Court by the Portland-based company, names Country Natural Beef.
Lawyers for New Seasons and Oregon Country Beef didn’t immediately return calls for comment from the newspaper.
On Nov. 8, 2019, officials from the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Department of Agriculture told New Seasons three cases of E. coli had been connected to ground beef sold in Portland-area stores of the grocery chain.
The chain took samples from meat cases and sent them to a state-run lab for analysis.
Two came back positive for E. coli and both were determined to have come from Country Natural Beef, the lawsuit said.
New Seasons pulled ground beef from shelves in all of its stores and recalled ground beef products it had sold, according to the suit. The suspension of ground beef sales lasted three months, the lawsuit says.
