Personal Injury Law

The real costs of not passing food safety legislation - more sick people and more lawsuits

By Bill Marler, Esq.

Dave Their, an AOL contributor, caught me in the middle of helping my oldest daughter move into her freshman dorm late yesterday afternoon as it was becoming clearer that S. 510 – the Food Safety Modernization Act – was taking its last few gulps of air. You have to give it to politicians – republicans and democrats alike – they hate trial lawyers (unless they want a donation), but they never seem to do a damn thing to really 'put me out of business.' Here is part of Dave's piece:

Bill Marler, an attorney focusing on food safety who has been watching the bill for a decade, worries that Coburn's call for more debate might be the final nail in the coffin.

If the Republicans take the Senate, he told AOL News, "that would mean that the bill is done, and we'll likely never see it again, at least for a generation."

Among Marler's clients is Linda Rivera, a Las Vegas resident -- and Reid constituent -- who suffered a stroke, kidney failure and liver failure after eating E. coli-tainted cookie dough. She remains hospitalized and so far has accumulated $4.5 million in medical costs, according to Marler.

"Some people are bothered by the cost of this legislation," he said. "But the cost of not passing this legislation has to account for more people like Linda Rivera."

Full post as published by Marler Blog on September 17, 2010 (boomark / email).