Kroger Shopper Wants Frozen Pea Listeria Class Action Certified

A class action plaintiff asked a federal judge Monday to certify a class of California consumers who purchased Kroger-brand frozen vegetables containing peas linked to a listeria outbreak, claiming the grocery chain and other defendants unjustly profited from their sale.

Plaintiff Roger Coffelt J. claims CRF Frozen Foods LLC manufactured frozen foods, sold under the brand name The Kroger Company, that contained peas contaminated with listeria. He claims selling adulterated or contaminated food is prohibited under both California and federal law, so the profits garnered from the sale of the food were gained unlawfully and should be refunded.

The frozen pee listeria class action lawsuit aims to hold not only CRF Frozen Foods accountable, but also The Pictsweet Company, the who packaged the food.

Coffelt argues that consumers who purchased a range of frozen vegetable products from The Kroger Company that were packaged by Pictsweet, sold by Kroger grocery stores between January 2013 and June 2016, and subjected to a 2016 recall due to listeria concerns, should be considered under the same class.

These products include:

• Kroger Peas and Carrots
• Kroger Green Peas
• Kroger Mixed Vegetables, and
• Kroger Vegetable Soup Mix.

He states these products were subject to a CRF Frozen Foods LLC recall in 2016, which was announced after the Center for Disease Control published findings that CRF’s peas were linked to a listeria outbreak that began in 2013, and that the outbreak could be traced back to frozen vegetables produced by CRF at their Pasco, Washington, facilities.

The Kroger peas class action lawsuit alleges that as a result of the outbreak, nine people were hospitalized and one person died.

The Kroger CRF Pictsweet peas class action lawsuit claims that because over three years had elapsed between when Kroger began selling the contaminated products and when the recall was issued in 2016, the vast majority of the contaminated vegetables had already been sold before the recall, so Kroger and others had profited from their sale. The listeria peas class action lawsuit goes on to state that based on this, the companies had violated laws against selling contaminated food.

In arguing in favor of class certification for consumers who purchased The Kroger Company products containing contaminated peas, Coffelt states the proposed class possesses necessary commonalities for certification.

He claims that “common issues predominate, because the legal and factual issues regarding the unlawful and unfair business practices are focused on defendants’ acts and omissions in conjunction with the illegal and unfair processing, storage, transport, and sale of the subject frozen peas.”

The Kroger frozen vegetables class action lawsuit was originally filed in July 2016 and applied to a range of frozen vegetables recalled in 2016, not just vegetable products containing peas. The complaint was later amended as evidence was found during the discovery process that allegedly only linked peas, not other vegetables, to the listeria outbreak.

Coffelt is represented by Clayeo C. Arnold and Joshua H. Watson of the Arnold Law Firm.

The Kroger CRF Pictsweet Pea Listeria Class Action Lawsuit is Coffelt v. The Kroger Co. et. al., Case No. 5:16-cv-01471, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.