DES MOINES – Lawyers in Des Moines are busy with two big cases.
Wandro & Associates are working on a salmonella suit and a wrongful death suit.
50 people say they got sick after eating chicken salad that was contaminated, and now they are suing.
The chicken salad was made by an Iowa food processing company, Triple T Specialty Meats, and distributed by Fareway stores.
The CDC says it has sickened 240 people in Iowa, and one person died from the outbreak.
Attorney, Steve Wandro says his clients have substantial medical bills and both the meat company and Fareway let their customers down in this case. They both had responsibilities to ensue healthy, safe products were on the shelves.
“I can tell you this, it was Fareway that puts it’s advertising and stamp on those containers saying it’s outs, so all that good will in what people expect out of Fareway that went into that product, and they were expecting a healthy product,” said Steve Wandro.
Fareway responded with a statement saying:
“Fareway Stores, Inc.has been working with state and federal agencies investigating this outbreak, which has been traced to chicken salad produced by Triple T Specialty Meats. When we learned that our supplier, Triple T Specialty Meats, was the cause of this problem, we were just as disappointed and concerned as our customers. Fareway hasn’t carried Triple T Specialty Meats’ chicken salad since it was pulled from the shelves on February 9th. And Fareway will not carry this product moving forward.”
Wandro & Associates also lead a wrongful death civil lawsuit. They represented the family of Kirk Blunck, the man many credit to developing downtown’s east village.
Blunck died back in January of 2016, and his death was ruled suspicious. Blunck’s family claims Zachary Gaskill of West Des Moines attacked Blunck causing his death. They filed a civil lawsuit against Gaskill, but he never showed up to court.
“They got closure, but they didn’t get full closure because they are still wondering how did this happen, why was this man who was important in lives taken from them in such a horrible way,” said Wandro.
A judge ordered Gaskill pay $6.25 million to the family. Wandro says the family was never seeking money, they just wanted answerers. Attorneys don’t expect Gaskill will pay any of the settlement.
