Third Diamond Pet Foods Salmonella Class Action Lawsuit Filed

Another pet owner has filed a class action lawsuit against Diamond Pet Foods, claiming his dogs got salmonella poisoning because the manufacturer and Amazon.com failed to warn him that Diamond’s Taste of the Wild brand dog food had been recalled.

Plaintiff Steven Cohen alleges in the Diamond Pet Foods salmonella class action lawsuit that he began purchasing Taste of the Wild brand pet food for this dogs Maggie and Angel in June 2011 from Amazon.com. Sometime in December 2011, Maggie and Angel became ill, lethargic and started vomiting frequently, which caused damage to Cohen’s house, the class action lawsuit says. The condition lasted for several months as Cohen continued to feed Taste of the Wild to his dogs, unaware that it was the reason his dogs were sick.

On April 6, 2012, Diamond Pet Foods began recalling several brands of pet food, including Taste of the Wild, after the FDA found numerous unsafe and unsanitary conditions at a Diamond manufacturing plant in South Carolina. In addition to pets, humans suffered from salmonella-tainted pet food manufactured at the plant. As of June 19, 2012, 16 people have reported becoming ill after being exposed to Diamond Pet Foods salmonella-tainted dry dog food, the class action lawsuit says. It wasn’t until May 10, however, that Cohen received notification of the Diamond Pet Foods recall from Amazon, after which he immediately stopped feeing Taste of the Wild to his dogs.

In all, 11 brands of dry dog and cat food were listed in the Diamond Pet Foods recall, including Kirkland Signature, Apex, Canidae, Diamond, and others (see the full list at DiamondPetRecall.com).   

 

At least two other Diamond Pet Foods class action lawsuits have been filed by pet owners relating to insufficient notice of the recall. In June, a New York resident sued Diamond Pet Foods and Costco, claiming her dog Benji died after eating tainted pet food, and that Diamond and Costco failed to warn her that the Kirkland Signature brand dog food she purchased was part of the recall. The month before that, a New Jersey couple filed a class action lawsuit against Diamond and Costco after their infant son was sickened by tainted Kirkland dog food they purchased at Costco, causing him to spend three days in the hospital with gastrointestinal injuries.

Cohen is seeking restitution and actual damages for a proposed class of all U.S. consumers who purchased pet food recalled by Diamond and Amazon.com. He is also seeking a court-supervised medical monitoring program through which Class Members’ pets can receive periodic veterinary examinations to discover and treat the harm they suffered from consuming the Defendants’ tainted pet food.

A copy of the Diamond Pet Foods Salmonella Class Action Lawsuit can be read here.

The case is Steven Cohen v. Schell & Kampeter, Inc. d/b/a Diamond Pet Foods and Amazon.com, Inc., Case No. 12-cv-3299, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York.