Product Recall Due to Plastic Chips in Meals

Several varieties of Lean Cuisine frozen meals were recalled in late November after seven different customers reported finding pieces of hard blue plastic in their meals. According to a spokesman for Nestle Prepared Foods Co., the company that owns Lean Cuisine, at least one consumer was injured when a piece of plastic in the meal cut the person's gums.

Chopped Up Plastic in the Meals
"A tray may have broken and chip-chopped into the product," said Roz Ahearn of Nestle. On the Lean Cuisine website, the company describes the product recall in detail, noting first that the three types of meals being recalled are:

  • Lean Cuisine Spa Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean
  • Lean Cuisine Dinnertime Selects Chicken Tuscan
  • Lean Cuisine Café Classics Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie Pasta

Not All of the Meal Varieties
The website notes that the recall is of only meals of these varieties with certain production codes, listed on the site. The production code is given on the right end flap of the meal. Most of the recalled meals have an expiration date in 2009 or 2010.

Lean Cuisine Spa Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean
8231 5959
8241 5959
8263 5959
8269 5959
8274 5959
8291 5959
8301 5959

Lean Cuisine Dinnertime Selects Chicken Tuscan
8234 5959
8253 5959
8269 5959
8292 5959
8296 5959

Lean Cuisine Café Classics Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie Pasta
8280 5959

Nestle says that it has determined that the blue plastic contaminating the meals entered a facility in a single lot (batch) of a raw ingredient. Over one million of the three Lean Cuisine meals are being recalled.

(Source: Washington Post)

What do you think about the FDA's ability to screen the food we eat?

http://www.bailey-law.com/lawyer-attorney-1218267.html

Political influence on products lawsuits

LawyersUSA (11/11, Atkins) reported, "The election is over, but a battle between business associations and trial lawyer groups is just beginning. Following the presidential election, groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce began warning that the Democrats' agenda would be bad news for businesses. Trial lawyers, however, say planned changes are necessary to restore a 'civil justice' system decimated by the outgoing Bush administration. Linda Lipson, spokeswoman for the Association for Justice, said that "changes to legislation and regulations are needed to" undo "the damage that President George W. Bush's policies have done to consumer rights." She said, "Manufacturers got the weakest possible rules on safety, and attached to it they got language that cut off consumers' remedies." Lipson added, "What we are trying to do is restore some balance and give consumers and victims of dangerous products a fair shake."

What are the chances Obama will be able to cure the last minute political paybacks Bush is not putting on the head of consumers?

 

http://www.bailey-law.com/lawyer-attorney-1215870.html

Railroads and workplace safety

Plaintiff must prove the following essential elements to sustain a claim for FELA negligence, causation and personal injury defendant: (a)Negligent maintenance of safety at the work place (b)Causation—no matter how slight—between that negligence and damages (c)personal injury damages.

Railroad companies continually use public and private property to organize work crews and park trucks and equipment. They do this without paying for the use or getting permission. This might save the company money but subjects the workers that can not be properly supervised or assured to be safe.

Most recently I tried to successful conclusion a FELA (federal employers liability act) case  for a Maintenance of Way worker who fell into a man hole partially obscured by snow. The unsupervised property under a bridge, owned by a small town, was not supervised or watched. The railroad company merely instructed its employee to pick up a truck left there by another crew. In the interum some vandals stole the man hole cover...an act that would not have happened on guarded railroad property.

See http://www.bailey-law.com/lawyer-attorney-1215842.html concerning FELA law.

trampoline recall

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recently announced  that Stamina Products of Springfield Mo. has agreed to pay the government a $105,000 civil penalty because failed to report in a timely manner injuries from defective mini-trampolines. In April 2006, CPSC and Stamina Products announced the recall of about 668,000 mini-trampolines.

Between April 2002 and June 2005, Stamina Products received eight reports from consumers complaining that the trampoline sprang back during the folding/unfolding process causing facial lacerations that required stitches, broken teeth, bruises, headaches, neck pain, broken facial bones, loss of mouth sensation, and blurred vision. 

 CPSC was finally informed of the incidents in July 2005.

Federal law requires firms to report to CPSC within 24 hours after obtaining information that a product contains a defect which could create a substantial product hazard, or creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death.

http://www.bailey-law.com/lawyer-attorney-1215486.html



Driver license

Driver’s Licenses for Illegal Aliens
The Federal Government hasn’t provided an immigration program capable of supplying the labor our economy has needed. The net result has been 12 to 20 million illegal immigrates, sometimes encouraged by employers who enjoy the use of invisible labor without the responsibility of safe working conditions or minimal wages. There is no chance in foreseeable future that these immigrants are going to be rounded up and sent away or provided a route to citizenship. Now many think that issuing a drivers license to them should not be done because it is a privilege. I disagree. Until our Federal Government gets around to a meaningful solution, we need to register these invisible people by issuing driver’s licenses. This will allow us to see if they can pass a written (English) test; pass the driving exam; and prove possession of liability insurance. Anyone driving on our roads needs to be known and exercise financial responsibility and competence—illegal or not.

http://www.bailey-law.com/lawyer-attorney-1246703.html