Class Action Alleging Seresto Collar Can Kill Pets Advances to Next Stage

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Seresto Flea Collar Class Action Lawsuit Overview:

• Who: A Florida consumer, John Czerniak, sued Bayer and Elanco Animal Health Inc., the former and current owners of the Seresto brand of flea and tick collars.
• Why: The lawsuit stems from allegations that the Seresto collars can sicken and kill pets.
• Where: Czerniak’s lawsuit is playing out in federal court in Pennsylvania.

At least one of the class action lawsuits claiming owners of the Seresto brand flea and tick collar knowingly sold a product that can sicken and kill pets is progressing through the courts.

On Friday, a class action complaint filed by Florida Plaintiff John Czerniak against Seresto’s former owner Bayer and its new owner Elanco Animal Health Inc. was transferred to an Illinois court for pretrial proceedings.

Czerniak filed the lawsuit in April, alleging his dog Romeo developed seizures and skin irritation while using the Seresto collar, and that the seizures only stopped when he removed the product. 

Czerniak’s class action lawsuit is purely seeking economic damages for the Class, rather than relief for any personal injuries or wrongful death, Law360 reported.

His is one of at least three class action lawsuits filed regarding the Seresto collar, after a bombshell report on the Seresto flea and tick collar by USA TODAY and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. 

Journalists discovered that, since Seresto collars were introduced in 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has received incident reports of at least 1,698 pet deaths related to the product and done nothing about it.

Since the report was released, a Congressional subcommittee called on Elanco to voluntarily recall the flea and tick collars, but the company declined to do so, saying there was no evidence that the collar was to blame for the animals’ deaths.

Since the Seresto collar hit the market in 2012, the EPA received more than 75,000 incident reports related to the collars, including the 1,698 pet deaths and nearly 1,000 involving human harm.

Between 2013 and 2018, 907 incidents were reported with humans, 19 of these incidents deemed severe. 

One included a case of a 12-year-old boy who slept in a bed with a dog wearing a collar who started having seizures and vomiting and had to be hospitalized. 

The collar was developed by German pharmaceutical company Bayer and sold to Elanco in 2020. Elanco spokesperson Colleen Dekker said the company had sold more than 25 million collars and an incident report rate of .3 percent, and it had investigated all the reports of death and found no link to the active pesticides, USA Today reported.

“There’s nothing that suggests it’s the active ingredients in the collar that’s at fault,” Dekker reportedly said.

In March, weeks after the first report of incidents surrounding the Seresto collar, a class action lawsuit was filed against Elanco alleging the company misrepresented the safety of its products.

In May, another lawsuit against Bayer Corp and Elanco was filed in a Pennsylvania federal court, claiming the pair sold the Seresto flea collar despite knowing that substances included in the product could harm pets and owners.  

Have you used a Seresto flea collar on your pet? We want to hear from you! Tell us what happened in the comment section below.  

The lead plaintiff is represented by Daniel C. Levin, Nicholas J. Elia of Levin Sedran & Berman LLP, and Scott D. Levensten Law Firm, PC.  

The Seresto Flea Collar Class Action Lawsuit is Levensten v. Elanco Animal Health Incorporated, et al., Case No. 2:21-cv-02364 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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