Tiger Brands must compensate victims of the Listeriosis outbreak: Richard Spoor and LHL Attorneys

now Law Firm Richard spur attorneys and LH attorneys have embarked on a campaign which is calling on Tiger Brands to compensate victims of the liosis outbreak now during the 20178 epidemic the National Institute for communicable diseases verified that the meat processing plant owned by Tiger Brand's subsidiary Enterprise Foods in Pana had signs of the st6 genetic variation of leria now at the time over a thousand cases of listeriosis were confirmed to 118 of those were fatal now of the confirmed cases 465 were associated with pregnancy ASC news reporter H has been following this case for us and joins us live now Hass of course this has been years in the making for us to get to this particular moment so what are the lawyers asking for so what the lawyers currently are asking for is for Tiger Brands to stop their uh legal processes that they've been ongoing since the six years that it began they've been bringing in different uh legal battles one of them has been that they confirm and and they admit that some of the cases may be related to him but not all of them and that has haltered the process we had a stage right now where the law firm says they're still at pre-trial conference we not yet to see a conference date that despite new evidence coming out as early as January of 2024 so that's earlier this year we're now almost 9 months into the year and we yet to see any progress when it comes to uh a trial date being set and a conference being uh you know uh concluded so that this Pro can actually get into uh the dock and they can actually uh question and examine all these allegations what they're also saying is that from the evidence there's a 90% And that is being modest it's almost 93% of a link that the strain the main strain st6 was found in those that were affected were also found in the contaminated poony and in the unopened Pony that was found at the Enterprises facilities that shows a link a complete close link between tiger BRS and those that have been affected that due to that evidence that tiger BRS should come to some kind of settlement outside of court that even if they admit to only part of those uh being their responsibility that even in those cases to at least come and you know create a settlement right now they're saying there's no talks at this case the insurers are handling the matter and they are also postponing so what they're calling for right now is Justice to be swiftly done it is 6 years and many accused thousand thousands that have been affected and you talk about you know the the the number of years but they also accusing tiger Browns of acting recklessly before and after the outbreak so what they're saying is that when the matter started which was in 2017 the nicd put out a national alert saying that we are unsure where this is coming from that is a product that is being sold nationally that may have listeriosis please do due diligence and see if your facilities if you are a meat producing facility that you may be the perpetrator of this and what they found was that at no point until the nicd found for themselves the link to Enterprise that Tiger Brands did not do their own due diligence only in February of 2018 when there was that press briefing where we heard that Enterprise was the brand that was being recalled then only did Tiger Brands do their own research that in those 16 months they continue to create contaminated prepackaged Goods in a facility and with a product that is accessible to listeriosis leria which is uh the uh bacteria is very rare in occurrence just to put into context for uh for the viewers that in a normal year you'd get about 20 cases and in this specific period there was at 1,500 and at no point did Tiger Brands do du diligence in their own facility to check whether or not there was leria present and they continue to produce and it only halted when nicd came to them and following that they saying that there have not been any apology done publicly there's not compensation people lost their lives a pregnant woman of them there's 200 that lost their babies uh just from consuming prepackaged uh meat which is a source of protein in South Africa it is a cheap alternative to protein it is something that is in everyone's home I don't think any one of us can go a month without eating some prepackaged uh product and that is how convenient it is and children who are young vulnerable they were successible to eating these it also impacted the most vulnerable in our community and disadvantage them because already burdened by uh socioeconomic issues you know led to Leading a diet that might not be able to supplement with proper protein they were now forced with health conditions some getting mellitis some unable to work there's a woman that came she's the first plaintiff and she described that she was pregnant when she consumed Enterprise Pon did not know that she had contracted listeriosis only found out after she had given birth and her daughter was 18 days old and they found out that she has listeriosis now 6 years on she's got six shun uh to her brain she is unable to go to a normal school even though she is going into she soils herself daily she has mental deficits at this point but the mother herself during her pregnancy been known to her that she had lerios lost blood flow to both her hips she now needs a double hip replacement she told us today that she has sold her house to pay for medical bills for her daughter who's going to need lifelong uh medical treatment and this is just one family story this is the story of a thousand others who went through there's a lady that told us that her mom lost her life there was a journalist that said she was also a victim herself to listeriosis as well quite harrowing details um you know that are coming out from some of the victims but have we heard from Tiger BRS at all the only comment that we've seem to be able to get a statements that claim that this is a matter that's in court at this process and that they will allow for the court to do due process we've been unable to really get any answers from them or or communicate with them with regards to this from the lawyers we are being told that they are present in pre-child conference they are there their lawyers are also present there they are given all the information all the disclosures and they are aware of every step of the way and we've heard from Civic organizations calling on Tiger Brands like the families to do the right thing to be held accountable to apologize for their negligence that was what happened in this case we've been told from the evidence that the legal team is putting forward that even according to their research that they done the cooking of the meat that was being done in those facilities were being done unstable uncont and meant that it was not at a level that could have ensured that lerios will not be present so showing that negligence may have been done in that in that case so right now not really hearing from them we hoping that a date will be set that we get some Court uh papers so that we can actually then hear their side and their arguments that they'll put forward but if not at least a settlement uh for the family at this stage it's going to be interesting to hear what they argue and as you say what becomes their response but Hina thank you so much for that update there that's my colleague Kori the sac news report of course and we will continue to reach out to Tiger Brands to see if we might be able to get a little more of a reaction than of course the statement they've released thus far