Dive Brief:
- The executives and managers involved in the Peanut Corporation of America salmonella outbreak will not have to pay restitution to victims, per federal Judge W. Louis Sands' ruling.
- Sands made an exception to the mandatory restitution requirements because the court "is too daunted by the complexity of determining the losses caused by each defendant to each identifiable victim," he wrote in his 15-page order.
- Brothers Stewart and Michael Parnell, Samuel Lightsey and Daniel Kilgore are currently serving federal prison sentences.
Dive Insight:
This decision is an exception to the rule. Per the Mandatory Victims' Restitution Act, defendants must make restitution to a victim or victim's estate in a variety of cases, which would include PCA. However, Sands said that attempting to ameliorate the restitution issues would "unduly complicate or prolong the sentencing process to a degree that the need to provide restitution to any victim is outweighed by the burden on the sentencing process."
After a 2007 E. coli outbreak related to contaminated ground beef, Cargill paid a total of $25.3 million in settlements to victims of the outbreak. Earlier this week, a court upheld a ruling that ordered Greater Omaha Packing Co., Cargill's beef supplier, to pay Cargill $9 million for its role in the outbreak and subsequent recall.
As of last month, the Department of Justice had received about 150 Victim Impact Statements, including requests for court-ordered restitution, in the case of the 2006-07 salmonella outbreak linked to ConAgra's Peter Pan and certain Great Value peanut butters. Victims who suffered the most shared $12 million via PCA's liability insurance coverage.