POISONED PET FOOD: LATEST NEWS AND SOME OF THE LEGALITIES:

On April 15th the Canada Free Press reported that the first pet deaths from tainted pet food had been reported in the US held island of Puerto Rico. Two miniature Schnauzers died from eating Ol' Roy biscuits purchased from the Amigo supermarket chain, owned by Walmart. Meanwhile on April 14th the importer ChemNutra issued a statement on their website. In it they blame Menu Foods for the slowness of their recall and offer a timeline essentially the same as that recently published in USA Today. ChemNutra's article speculates that the melamine found in their gluten may have been added to give an artificially high protein content on analysis.

Meanwhile the legal beagles are circling the raft. Various class action lawsuits have been filed in both the USA and Canada. Here in Manitoba a lawsuit was filed by Winnipeg lawyer Harvey Pollock on April 2nd on behalf of two pet owners, one a cat owner and another who claimed the recalled food killed a litter of nine puppies. In Calgary lawyer Clint Docken has filed suit against Menu Foods on behalf of several pet owners in Alberta and BC. In Toronto a $60 million class action suit was filed by lawyer Joel Rochon of the firm Rochon,Genova who has received calls from several other Canadian provinces besides Ontario. This suit was launched in collaboration with another Toronto law firm, Himelfarb, Proszanski. Still another Ontario law firm, Sutts and Strosberg of Windsor Ontario filed a suit in Windsor seeking $35 million damages. Then what may be the mother of all the lawsuits has been filed in several jurisdictions by the Merchant Law Group. They filed the first one in Montreal On March 22nd and say that they have been contacted by over 3,200 individuals seeking information on joining the action. The link above gives more information and includes a form that you can fill out if you wish more info or if you wish to join the suit.

More on the legalities in the USA later.

Stay tuned,

Molly