Class Action: Sushi Restaurant Sells ‘White Tuna’ That Is Another Fish

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A California sushi restaurant was hit with a class action lawsuit, alleging that the “white tuna” it sells is actually a fish called “escolar,” which causes diarrhea and other digestive issues.

Plaintiff Cynthia Erickson filed the sushi class action lawsuit on July 29 against V&J Sushi dba Maki Yaki and its owner, In Won Ko. Maki Yaki is located in Costa Mesa. The lawsuit was filed in Orange County Court.

According to the Maki Yaki sushi class action lawsuit, Erickson ate at the sushi restaurant in October 2014 when she “ordered certain items off the restaurant menu including fish labeled ‘white tuna.’ Plaintiff discovered through a species identification test that the ‘white tuna’ was actually escolar, a completely different family of fish.”

Escolar, also called snake mackerel and walu walu, dwells in deep tropical waters around the would. However, it is not able to metabolize wax esters that exists in its diet. As a result, escolar is considered incredibly rich, buttery and “succulent.”

But because the wax esters are not processed by the fish, they get built up in the flesh of the fish, leaving it with a 25 percent oil content, which behaves like a natural laxative, the sushi class action lawsuit explains.

The oil in escolar is called gempylotoxin; it is similar to castor oil and mineral oil. The oil in the fish is not digestible by humans, but it is not toxic. Escolar is in the Gempylidaie family.

The side effects of escolar includes cramping, nausea, diarrhea and abdominal pain. These symptoms may occur anywhere from 30 minutes to 36 hours after consuming the fish.

It is not uncommon for escolar to be sold as “white tuna,” super white tuna,” “white fish,” “oil fish,” “bincyo” or “butterfish.”

According to the website Chef’s Resources, “Escolar has the unfortunate distinction of being both one of the best tasting fish in the world … and having the most notorious of possible side effects after its consumption.”

From 2010 to 2013 the environmental group Oceana tested 114 fish that was sold as “tuna” and discovered that 84 percent of those tested were in fact escolar.

In the sushi class action lawsuit, Erickson says that “In Won Ko intentionally participated in the deceptive mislabeling of escolar by the combination of: (1) ratifying the restaurant menu that omits the word escolar and (2) approving purchases of escolar with knowledge that the restaurant menu omitted the word escolar and called it ‘white tuna.'”

A bulletin about the side effects of the fish was sent out by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the early 1990s after the federal agency received several adverse effect reports from consumers.

The fish has been banned in both Italy and Japan, and Canada, Sweden and Denmark have all mandated warning labels to be added to the fish.

Erickson says in her sushi class action lawsuit that Maki Yaki’s “practice of bait and switch sale of seafood constitutes a violation” of a California civil code.

She is looking to represent a class of Maki Yaki customers who bought what they thought was white tuna but were actually given escolar “without their knowledge” at some point in the last four years.

The California woman is charging Maki Yaki with deceptive advertising, unfair business practices and violating consumer laws.

The plaintiff is represented by Wade Miller.

There is no attorney information available for the defendant at this time.