Menu Foods settlement: $24 million
By Gina Spadafori
May 23, 2008
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.
“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
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
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
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
Pooter died March 20,2007—-to be cont.
Comment by E. Smith — May 23, 2008 @ 11:46 am
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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