Dive Summary:

• Westland/Hallmark, now defunct, has just reached a settlement with the U.S. government for roughly $495 million over a landmark recall in 2008.
• The company was once the major supplier of ground beef for school lunches in the U.S. until undercover footage showed egregious safety and health violations at one of their processing plants.
• The U.S. Humane society also has cases against nine former employees, two of which are settled or close to it.

From the article:

The now defunct Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. sparked the largest-ever meat recall after egregious, undercover abuse footage was made public in 2008 and now the company has sparked the largest-ever judgement for an animal abuse case. On Friday, the Humane Society of the United States announced it had reached a partial settlement with two of the nine defendants in its False Claims Act lawsuit and that the federal government was entering a final judgement of $497 million against the company, which used to be one of the biggest suppliers of ground beef to the National School Lunch Program. The an...