The Tragedies--Now the Lawsuits : Cheese Death Liability Claims Seek Millions

California lawyers have begun to file multimillion-dollar product liability claims against Jalisco Mexican Products Inc. and its chief executive since the recent bacteria epidemic that has been linked to contaminated cheese produced by the Artesia firm.

A Simi Valley attorney filed 28 such actions this week and estimated Tuesday that a class action could grow out of the multiplying lawsuits with a potential for $30 million in damage claims.

So far this year, more than 250 people have become ill in California from the bacteria, Listeria monocytogenes, and 85 of them have died, according to the state Department of Health Services.

D.A. Investigating

The Jalisco firm, which shut down last June when the potentially deadly bacteria were discovered in its cheese, is under criminal investigation by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Simi Valley attorney Edward B. Artman said he filed the 28 lawsuits against Jalisco on Monday in Ventura County Superior Court. Typically, in each case, he said in a telephone interview, the individual plaintiff is asking for $1 million in punitive damages plus an unspecified figure in actual damages.

Defendants, he said, include the company; its president, Gary S. McPherson; markets that sold the cheese; state and county regulatory agencies; the owners of 23 dairy herds that supplied milk to Jalisco, and the manufacturer of the cheese firm’s pasteurization machinery.

One theory being explored by federal and state investigators is that not all of Jalisco’s milk was properly pasteurized, thus leaving some Listeria bacteria in cheese that was marketed to the public. But federal Food and Drug Administration officials say they are not yet positive that a breakdown in the pasteurization process was the primary contamination source.

“I work with several doctors in the (Simi) valley, and the doctors referred (Jalisco) cases to us,� Artman said in a telephone interview.

He said he will make a decision “in the next two weeks� on whether to confer with other lawyers in an effort to combine Jalisco lawsuits into one class action against the firm. The potential in damage claims from such a lawsuit, he estimated, “is about $30 million.�

‘Baby Not Kicking’

One of his clients, a Latino woman who said she ate Jalisco cheese, is six months pregnant, Artman said, and the “baby has not been kicking recently.�

About a third of Los Angeles County’s Listeria- related illnesses among primarily Latino women resulted in fetal deaths, according to figures compiled by health authorities.

Attorneys for San Francisco-based attorney Melvin Belli also have been busy lining up clients who claim that they fell ill from contaminated Jalisco cheese.

Six cases have been filed in San Francisco and Contra Costa counties and six more cases in the Los Angeles area, according to Belli attorneys. Damages requested range between $2 million and $5 million, including one by a woman who claims that her child was born with brain damage after she ate Jalisco cheese, a spokesperson for the firm said.