Boar’s Head has raised a courtroom beef with a New York widow whose husband died this summer after eating tainted liverwurst — and her high-profile attorney believes the deli meat giant is “sending a message” to him, The Post has learned.
Kathleen Hamilton of Hicksville, LI, slapped Boar’s Head with lawsuit in October in Brooklyn federal court, but now the company is requesting that a judge move the case to Virginia where Boar’s Head is defending itself against a slew of wrongful death lawsuits, according to a Dec. 31 filing.
Hamilton’s husband of 55 years, Robert Hamilton, was rushed to Nassau University Medical Center on July 12 with flu-like symptoms including stomach pains, diarrhea and a high fever.
He spent the next six days in the ICU before he passed away at age 73.
The state Health Department confirmed his death was linked to the Boar’s Head listeria outbreak, according to the complaint.
“This poor lady lost her husband and Boar’s Head wants to drag her down to Virginia,” said Hamilton’s lawyer, Bill Marler, a prominent food safety attorney who opposed the request in a court filing last week.
The star litigator, who was featured in the Netflix documentary “’Poisoned: The Dirty Truth About Your Food,” pointed to the fact that Boar’s Head filed its request to move the case to Virginia during the middle of the holidays.
“When you file stuff on on New Years or Christmas Eve, you are doing it to send a message,” Marler said.
A spokesperson for Boar’s Head said in a statement, “While we do not comment on the substance of ongoing litigation, the request to move the case is simply procedural, and we intend to address it as part of the process.”
Boar’s Head wants to consolidate its cases in Virginia under the same judge for the “most efficient and practical outcome,” the company said in court filings.
Hamilton is seeking $20 million for both punitive and compensatory damages, according to the complaint.
Marler said Boar’s Head may be particularly “pissed off” at him because he has been outspoken about advocating for criminal charges against Boar’s Head and congressional hearings about the outbreak.
Changing the venue to Virginia “imposes an undue hardship” on the widow and is “unnecessarily cruel under the circumstances,” according to the widow’s court filing.
“Boar’s Head is saying these nice things publicly,” Marler said, “but behind the scenes they are filing motions on New Year’s Eve and dragging a widow to Virginia.”
He is representing four other families who lost their loved ones to listeria after eating Boar’s Head product and and five clients who became ill.
The Sarasota, Fla.-based company argued that litigating the Hamilton case in New York “would also impose duplicative burden on [Boar’s Head] in requiring it to defend a substantially similar action in two venues simultaneously,” adding that “the filing … in New York should not be afforded deference.”
The Boar’s Head argument is a “tough sell,” according to Richard Dollinger, a retired member of the New York court of claims who is not involved in the case.
“The plaintiff’s case is exclusively based in New York,” including all of the witnesses — the Hamilton’s friends, relatives, neighbors, the treating physicians and nurses — who will testify to the Hamilton’s pain and suffering, Dollinger said.
The widow would be financially responsible for bringing all of these witnesses to Virginia, say legal experts.
“The courts look at the convenience of the witnesses and the relative financial power of the two parties,” Dollinger added. “It seems to me that both of those factors weigh in favor of keeping the case in New York.”
Boar’s Head recalled 7.2 million pounds of potentially tainted meat in July after people were falling ill across the country.
In total, 10 people died from the listeria outbreak — including Günter Morgenstein, a Holocaust survivor who died in July in Newport News, Va. – and at least 51 people were sickened by the deadly bacteria.
Federal inspectors found unsanitary conditions at Boar’s Head Jarrat, Va. plant – which was flagged as the source of the outbreak – where mold was growing on the walls and ceiling, condensation dripped onto the food, insects were “flying around the room,” and “pools of blood” were allowed to gather on the floor.
The shocking inspection reports spanned more than a year – and federal records released this week from the US Agriculture Department paint a disturbing picture of Boar’s Head’s other facilities as well.
Processing plants in New Castle, Ind., Forrest City, Ark. and Petersburg, Va. were found to have similar problems as the Jarratt plant over the past six years, with one inspector describing a room at the Indiana plant as “general filth,” according to the reports.
The billion dollar business said in a statement that the violations documented “do not meet our high standards.”
The Jarratt facility was closed this summer and the company issued a statement afterwards saying that the outbreak “is a dark moment in our company’s history.”
“Since last year’s recall, the company has implemented enhanced food safety interventions and programs across the entire organization that are elevating Boar’s Head to an industry-leading food safety standard,” a Boar’s Head spokesperson said in a statement.
