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Menu Foods settlement: $24 million

By Gina Spadafori

May 23, 2008

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USA Today, from the start of it all and still on top of it. Julie Schmit, reporting:

Menu Foods, other pet food makers and retailers involved in last year’s massive pet food recall will set up a $24 million cash fund to compensate pet owners, according to a proposed settlement filed Thursday in federal court.

The fund is expected to compensate thousands of pet owners in the U.S. and Canada who bought recalled pet foods made by Menu and 11 others. The products had a contaminated ingredient from China that sickened dogs and cats.

The $24 million is in addition to $8 million that pet food makers have already paid to pet owners. Legal fees and expenses, which haven’t been determined, will come out of the fund. The settlement, negotiated over the past seven months, would resolve more than 100 lawsuits by more than 250 plaintiffs brought in the U.S. and a dozen in Canada.

If the settlement is approved by the court, the fund is expected to be set up and disbursed over a period of months. Unlike many large settlements, consumers will get cash rather than coupons.

In addition to Menu, defendants include pet-food makers Del Monte, Hill’s Pet Nutrition and Iams; retailers such as Wal-Mart and importers ChemNutra and Wilbur-Ellis.

[...]

The FDA never identified how many pets were affected, but it received more than 17,000 pet-owner complaints.

The settlement document doesn’t say how much each defendant will pay. The recall covered 180 brands of pet food and treats.

Once it is approved, the settlement will be widely publicized. A toll-free number and website will be set up to disburse information.

Here’s the rest.

The comments, as usual, contain their share of pet-hating crap, it’s just a pet, so what, children are in need and all we care about is pets, etc.

Talk about clueless! Aside from the deaths of the innocent and the costs in the millions to the people who loved these pets, this was massive consumer fraud and just the tip of the iceberg as far as what we’ve learned since about a non-functioning federal bureaucracy unable to protect our country — so much for homeland security! — from deadly imports.

Filed under: 2007 food recall,animals: pets,news — Gina Spadafori @ 5:55 am

37 Comments »

  1. “Unlike many large settlements, consumers will get cash rather than coupons.”

    You mean people with poisoned pets don’t want coupons for more of the food?

    Comment by slt — May 23, 2008 @ 6:02 am

  2. I am not surprised Julie at USA Today was the first to cover this. Thank you .. I was surprised to see that MSNBC in their subtitle referred to the food as poisoned—-which I think is the more appropriate adjective…based on what I saw firsthand - twice..

    Comment by Carol V — May 23, 2008 @ 6:50 am

  3. Let’s see, $24 million, less 1/3rd for the attorneys, equals $16 million, divided by 250,000 pets killed, equals $64 per pet.

    Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a full refund of your vet bills. The settlement is a joke.

    Comment by JuliaMartin — May 23, 2008 @ 8:03 am

  4. I don’t know where to go or what to do , I just spoke to my claim rep at Hartford and she is now saying she does’t think the food caused the illness in my 2 cats they started vomiting and incontinence in dec 07 and it continuied into March 07 when we found out about the recall of course they were better every time the vet gave them special diet and they were only eating 1 nutro pouch a day because it was easy in the am before work so there levels were low but that does not change that they were ill and that they sold me tainted food .Is it to late to join the settlement ?

    Comment by Elaine p. — May 23, 2008 @ 8:05 am

  5. Pooter died March 20,2007—-to be cont.

    Comment by E. Smith — May 23, 2008 @ 11:46 am

  6. The Philadelphia Inquier says the settlement is $32 million

    http://www.philly.com/philly/n.....03879.html

    Comment by Dorene — May 23, 2008 @ 5:17 pm

  7. Just curiou is anyone heard what happened to Mark Wiens, CFO, Menu Foods who sold his shares of Menu just before the recall?
    Some people filed a complaint with the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC)for alleged insider trading but nothing is on their website.
    Was it really just a ‘horrible coincidence’ (his words)that he walked away with $102,900 (14,000 shares)? Menu closed at $1.10 as of May 23/08 so our pets loss was his gain. Sleep well Mark!

    Comment by Sindy — May 23, 2008 @ 9:21 pm

  8. on itchmo forums

    Quote from: Mandycat on Today at 09:48:58 AM
    Don,
    Where did you get 250,000 pets killed? I only see 250 plaintiffs mentioned in the article that were included in this lawsuit.

    Don posted this reply

    What passes for a news media in this country today is a half baked farce. Do a name search on Pacer for civil cases filed in Federal court naming Menu Foods as a party. The last time I looked, the number was 489. It’s my understanding there are about 2500 lead plaintiffs named in in those suits.

    In statements made on the record, Menu Foods alone has received over half a million complaints. A national chain of veterinary hospitals crunched their data over the recall period and found a 30% increase in kidney failure in pets. Extrapolating from that data, which is from a statistical universe so large as to virtually eliminate a margin of error, at least a quarter million pets were murdered by the poisoned food, mostly cats. The damage done, the pain suffered, and the total lack of anything vaguely resembeling justice is absolutely staggering.

    The initial recall involved 60 million containers of pet food. That was before every major pet food company in North America announced recalls of a similar scope and scale.

    What do you suppose happens when over a hundred million servings of canned death are fed to pets for 4 months?

    16 deaths? Hundreds? Maybe thousands?

    No.

    Hundreds of thousands.

    Most of the people who lost pets to this nightmare will never see a dime’s worth of justice for what was done to them.

    Comment by JuliaMartin — May 24, 2008 @ 3:30 pm

  9. A study of veterinarians conducted by the independent and respected Veterinary Information Network suggests thousands to tens of thousands of pets were killed and tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands were made ill.

    Of course, these represent only those animals who made it to the veterinarian. Who knows how many cats just “didn’t come home” and were assumed to have been hit by car or had something else happen, but were really killed by tainted food.

    No one will really ever know, or could ever know, how many pets were sicked or killed.

    That’s why we have from Day One called for a national system to report animal deaths through veterinarians. The reality of the pet-food recall was put together by veterinarians sharing observations on VIN; otherwise, it would all have been isolated incidents never identified as a trend.

    A national governmental system of reporting is important for human health as well, since health crises — hello avian flu? — start in animal populations and need to be IDed and stopped there before people start dying, too.

    Comment by Gina Spadafori — May 24, 2008 @ 4:13 pm

  10. I would guess that we all know someone(s) whose pet died, they assumed it was old age or rat poison or what-have-you and then they realized after the recall that they had been feeding recalled food. None of those pets made it to the Vet and many pet owners knew very little about the recall anyway. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say “Yeah I heard something about that…” like it was the minor story most all of the MSM made it out to be. The true numbers will never be known.

    Comment by slt — May 24, 2008 @ 5:59 pm

  11. A Tampa news station reported the settlement and mentioned that “several” pets died. And this wasn’t even FOX news! Gak gak gak

    Comment by CathyA — May 25, 2008 @ 6:34 am

  12. I think Don’s numbers are low anyway.

    My point is that there has been and still is an ongoing cover-up, aided and abetted by the FDA.
    And others.

    Even the news release makes it sound like the pet owners agreed to this, instead of being sold out by the class action lawyers.
    And they _still_ insist on low balling the death toll.

    Add in the deaths from the first time PFI members sold poison under a premium label, in Asia, and the numbers are in the millions.
    For pets.
    But we all ate hot melamine, for years apparently, combined with newly approved levels of various toxins.

    This was the wrong weekend to to a drop and run news releases, assholes.
    No soldier died to preserve corporate greed.
    No one is ever going to raise a flag for that.
    I consider it an insult.

    One more disgraceful act, in a string of disgusting actions and inactions.

    I think a jury is going to _add_ some big numbers, to already large numbers, for that one. And I figure every one of those lying TV ads is going to cost more than the pet food industry ever dreamed.

    Comment by JuliaMartin — May 25, 2008 @ 6:53 am

  13. Comment by CathyA — May 25, 2008 @ 6:34 am

    Yes and the same news station would be *all over* inflating the numbers if they found a “hoarder” in the community. And it would be a higher placement than any recall story. “Tonight at 6: Local lady discovered with EIGHTY cats!”

    I think the most obvious testament to the pet food industry’s successful squelching of this and related stories is the fact that “everyone” is back to feeding their products and that no manufacturers switched from Menu Foods. If they perceived there would be financial repercussions from continuing to do business with Menu “We lied while pets died” Foods, manufacturers would have switched. But they didn’t and they were right in that the vast majority of consumers don’t know or care.

    Comment by slt — May 25, 2008 @ 7:40 am

  14. Are you hearing about the tidal wave of death that is here, right now, taking those that survived the initial dose of toxins and going under to the very specific cancers and organ failures caused by this disaster?

    It is happening. In numbers that WOULD get the pet food cleaned up, if only anyone knew.

    The FDA and the PFI and the media are going to great efforts to keep anyone from looking there.

    Even the much vaunted vet network is turning, carefully, deliberately, away to keep from looking at what is happening.

    The dying and the pain have only just begun. The last 18 months long nightmare was bad, there is much worse coming.
    For the pets and the people who love them.

    Comment by JuliaMartin — May 25, 2008 @ 8:50 am

  15. I have lost 4 cats to the recall and now owe the vicksburg animal hospital $400.00 . From where one of my mother cats died from liver disease. I am only buying friskes wet food for the cats and predigee for my dog. No more old roy or special kitty.

    Comment by cynthia — May 27, 2008 @ 9:08 am

  16. My cat’s name was Snoozer. She was a beautiful can and well loved by us. She had diabetes, and was not eating much, so I thought i would buy the best cat food and feed her with a spoon. I bought the Iams small cans of food. Later I found out it was on the recall list. My cat would have lived a lot longer, since her diabetes was under control, and she received insulin daily. What a devasting think to happen without a clue as to the cause, ntil later it all came out.
    Betty

    Comment by betty jane perry — October 15, 2008 @ 11:25 am

  17. Can someone help me with all of this, my cat suffured from this food, we have vet bills, unopened packs of the food, reciepts etc. sent them in to a company here in Tucker Ga. Did not want to join a class action suit, just want my $500 for vet bills, now I am being told by Menu Foods I need to join the class action and not being given any garuantee(sp)that I will recoup my money. My cat survived this because I had a great vet, now I want what was promised to all of us that suffered through this. I am at a loss at what to do. Thank you for any help.

    Comment by Deb — October 24, 2008 @ 5:51 am

  18. Deb, Here is a link to the website for the claim forms to download and other details…there are/were deadlines to “opt out” of the settlement and to send remarks to the judge but I think that time has expired and the time is expiring in November to send in forms as well…I too did not want to join a class action and sent my forms to Crawford and Co. in May 2007 (twice) but I think the only way to get your vet bills reimbursed, partially or in total, is now to send in forms from the link..I think it is too late to go after your vet bills any other way if you did not “opt out”…it sucks doesn’t it…I am in same boat but now I can only hope that some of my 2500.00 in vet bills does get reimbursed…There is a phone number at the link I provided…I would call them.. and I did send in my claim forms for my two sick cats…after much “deliberation”… But I also think that it is a shame that Menu Foods, after publically saying they would cover documented vet expenses, now has a “ceiling” that they do not have to pay over…No one won here but the lawyers and the companies in my opinion…I think reimbursement of health costs should have been a minimum of what they pay…and then start up an early warning system for vets and pet owners and increase their QC systems as a start…

    Comment by Carol V — October 24, 2008 @ 9:01 am

  19. http://www.petfoodsettlement.com/documents/claims/

    oops…forgot the link…sorry.!!

    Comment by Carol V — October 24, 2008 @ 9:01 am

  20. Also Deb, you should have received the claim forms in the mail as Crawford & Co forwarded the names of the pet owners they had info from I was told…and I did get claim forms mailed to me….

    Comment by Carol V — October 24, 2008 @ 9:03 am

  21. Thanks Carol for your help, sorry it’s taken so long to reply,I was not forwarded any claim forms by Crawford, but thanks to your help now have them in hand and will make the Nov.24 cut-off date.Thanks again, hope everything works out for you also.
    Deb

    Comment by Deb — November 6, 2008 @ 9:39 am

  22. Comment by betty jane perry — October 15, 2008 @ 11:25 am

    Betty, I think what you have written is one of the things that kind of got left out and that is what about all the pets that died of so-called other pre-existing illnesses/diseases but had actually died as the result of melamine/ca poisoning. Sadly we will never know the truth about these cases.

    Comment by Sandi K — November 6, 2008 @ 10:05 am

  23. I had two cats sickened by this tainted food and luckily found out about recall in time to stop progress of sickening. Kept nine bags of the tainted product and still have them.
    My problem was that all I wanted was Menu Foods to compensate for vet bills and unused food. I called Menu Foods app. four times over a period of time and they kept saying they would take my name and when a settlement was reached they would call.
    I waited for the call after reading online that it was in court proceedings at the time and that Menu Foods could not talk to claimants at this time.
    In Sept. of 2008 I my oldest cat was getting real sick and it made me think of the settlement. SURPRISE— I read online that an agreement was reached and that I had to contact some other group to put in a claim by NOV 2008. If I had not stumbled upon this I would have been out of luck. Menu Foods never called to let me know who to contact, when I got hold of the firm doing the settlement I was told the court said that Menu Foods did not have to provide them with people that contacted them, or was not responsible for letting us know. Talk about protecting the big companies. Trying to do the right thing I was almost done in again.

    Comment by Tim — January 18, 2009 @ 9:59 am

  24. Tim, I believed them too…despite friends and family saying they didn’t care…it took me a few months to realize they were all correct…the way Menu Foods handled the recall and dealt with worried pet owners has changed how I look at big business now…Companies “reps” and even a VP in marketing all told me not to worry…talk about wearing rose-colored glasses…
    BTW…I get most of my pet related news from the pet blogs otherwise I would not have known what to do either….Hope your kitty recovered…

    Comment by Carol V — January 19, 2009 @ 5:17 am

  25. Has anyone heard from the lawyers about your claim? I saw on the website it says theres a hold up and no one can be paid until several cases are heard by the judge and that could takes months or years. So, I emailed the lawyers and the response I received said they were processing the claims and that I would hear from them after they processed mine and that no one would receive any money until every claim was processed. They said nothing about the hold up in court. So, I was just wondering if anyone who filed a claim has heard from them? Thanks.

    Comment by CINDY — January 28, 2009 @ 10:56 am

  26. How long must we wait for the reimbursement funds? This is very painful and a sad reminder that we all would like to close the book on.

    Thanks

    Comment by judy demoulin — September 28, 2009 @ 4:52 pm

  27. I have been waiting as everyone else to hear something back about the menue foods settelment. I called early this year to be told it was going back to court once again and that we should hear something after that. It’s now late Oct 2009 and still nothing. Many of us lost loving pets and we are not being notified of any progress being done. I am upset and too would love to put closure on this. I had to put my Bailey down Spring of 2007. Its been too long. We deserve to get some feedback and $compensation for our pain and suffering!!!

    Comment by Janet Taylor — October 20, 2009 @ 11:33 am

  28. our 8 month old kitten ate food, unbeknownst to us, made by menu foods. on november 11th 2009, she became violently ill and caused us to rush her to the er vet that night at 1 am. this food was sold at trader joes in northern california. the vet says she was sickened by what she ate, and she only ate the wet food from menu foods/trader joes market. i can’t believe that they still make this food… now we will try to recoup our $400 vet bill from that incident… any pointers would help. thanks.

    Comment by julie bug — November 26, 2009 @ 8:27 pm

  29. Julie … the settlement,such as it is, is for the 2007 recall. It’s unlikely you’ll see a dime on your more recent crisis.

    I would start with Trader Joe’s, and see if they will help. You’ll need the label with the manufacturing info, lot number, etc., plus your vet records. There should be a phone number on the label as well. Call the company.

    But honestly … be grateful you still have your kitten. That may be the only good thing you’ll be taking out of this incident.

    Comment by Gina Spadafori — November 27, 2009 @ 7:35 am

  30. Sorry about your loss. But I also loss my pet which was like a child to us it was a small Yorkie, But I was woundering has anyone heard what be came of the lawsuit I filled out all the paper work to be part of it and sent it in before the dead line and I have not heard a thing…do you know or heard anything?
    Keith

    Comment by Keith Smith — December 15, 2009 @ 1:55 pm

  31. Two of my beloved cats ate the Pet Pride brand of wet food that came from Menu.
    Both died.
    There is no amount of money that can take away
    the pain my cats went through when their kidneys failed, and Menu knew what was going on and let it continue so they could profit.
    God will have the final say on what was done in the name of money.
    I will NEVER spend a cent on anything with the Menu label again.

    Comment by Ilene Andrus — May 8, 2010 @ 12:48 pm

  32. Still waiting to hear about this settlement. I guess the vet bills and animals sick mean nothing.

    Comment by Tammy — June 9, 2010 @ 1:46 pm

  33. It has been a long time since anyone has posted on here and a long time since I have heard anything about the settlement. Since I last posted my oldest cat has died and my youngest has blood in his urine but seems to be OK. Last time I wrote it was in regards to the way I was treated by Menu Foods but now I am beginning to wonder about the law firm we sent our information to for the class action. It seems like those of us involved are not important to anyone. I would like to just hear from the attorneys to let me know the status of the proceedings. I know it is out of their hands as far as moving along, but the courtesy of a phone call or email would be nice. Hope that this will soon be over so we can all move on without wondering about this all the time.
    Tim

    Comment by Tim — January 10, 2011 @ 9:09 am

  34. Tim..this came out in Dec 2010
    http://www.petfoodsettlement.com/
    http://www.petfoodsettlement.c.....162010.pdf

    Comment by Carol V — January 10, 2011 @ 12:45 pm

  35. Just wondering if anyone has even heard from menu foods because i have not? If all they are goint to pay is $64.00 that is a joke because i have six thousand dolllars in vet bills for my little yorkie. Well if someone from menu foods reads this please keep my $64.00 and donate it to the animal shelter. Please do not insult me with $64.00. Carol Brischetto and my very healthy Biscuit.

    Comment by carol brischetto — March 15, 2011 @ 5:22 pm

  36. I really believe that they are waiting for us older people who lost pets to die off so they won’t have to pay us. It has been a long time since I sent my claim. Menus foods was going to settle but they would not let them do that and made me go into the big settlement. Do you know how much interest the court is collecting on this 24 million???? and for a long time. Just another government scam to get the loot away from us citizens.

    Comment by Robert V. Hayes Sr. — April 2, 2011 @ 3:32 pm

  37. I received two checks for my two cats being poisoned by this food. One has died and the other one has kidney problems. For this I received a total that was less than my expenses in the cost of the food, vet bills etc. In fact they did not consider bills that would come in after we were required to send in expenses. What a travesty of justice, it might have been a little nicer if Menu Foods had sent us a card at least saying they were sorry.

    Comment by Tim — October 1, 2011 @ 9:03 am

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