Chipotle Food Poisoning Lawyer: Chipotle faced with fourth subpoena stemming from 2018 illnesses
Following multiple incidents of foodborne illness at one of its Ohio locations, Chipotle continues to be questioned about its food handling and food safety procedures. US Federal prosecutors served the restaurant chain’s corporate office with a fourth subpoena in April 2019 in an effort to investigate the cause of approximately 700 illnesses at Chipotle’s Powell, Ohio, restaurant.
This latest subpoena is part of an ongoing criminal investigation conducted by the US Attorney’s office for the Central District of California. Previous subpoenas have been issued to investigate food poisoning incidents at Chipotle’s restaurant locations in California, Massachusetts, and Virginia that also caused hundreds of illnesses among restaurant patrons.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to investigate the incidents in Ohio as well as those that resulted in e. coli, salmonella, and norovirus outbreaks across multiple states in previous years. In the Ohio cases that occurred in late July 2018, the FDA determined that food was left at unsafe temperatures. Hundreds of Chipotle customers developed symptoms that included diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea, from the bacteria clostridium perfringens that developed in the food that was improperly handled.
The food safety law firm of Ron Simon & Associates established a Chipotle Claims Center to handle cases on behalf of those customers who became ill after eating at the Powell, Ohio, restaurant. Simon explained that his firm “represents numerous victims of this outbreak, and we have prosecuted hundreds of cases in the past against Chipotle. Unfortunately, this is the seventh outbreak caused by Chipotle in recent years.”
After news of the fourth subpoena served to Chipotle broke on April 25, the company’s shares fell 5 percent.
