By now, Sacramento residents have probably heard about the listeria outbreak that is sickening people all across the country who ate tainted cantaloupes. Although the contaminated melons were grown in Colorado, this outbreak has unfortunately had negative consequences for melon farms not far from Sacramento, even though there is no proof that their melons pose any danger. Further down the line, this crisis could spawn lawsuits as cantaloupe growers struggle to fulfill their legal and business obligations in the face of drastically changed business and economic positions.

In this two-part series, we will explore how an issue that makes headlines today but might be gone tomorrow can have long-standing consequences for California farm owners (who of course comprise an important economic sector). We will also discuss at what the legal fallout from this public-health crisis might look like.

First, a little background: listeria is a bacteria that, in some cases, can make people very sick. It can cause sepsis (general infection) and can lead to meningitis and encephalitis. It is especially a danger for pregnant women and the elderly. Vegetables can become tainted with listeria because of their close proximity to soil, where listeria can live, and animal waste, which is a common carrier of the germ.

One of the hard things about outbreaks of food-borne illnesses how difficult it is to pinpoint what is bearing the  germ that is causing the sickness. By now, federal investigators know the listeria-tainted cantaloupes did not come  from anywhere in California. Still, consumers cannot look at a cantaloupe at the supermarket and tell whether it came from Colorado or California (or elsewhere), and so, out of a perfectly reasonable concern for their health, they just stopped buying cantaloupes. That, in turn, meant retailers stopped stocking the fruit and since they were not getting any orders, many farmers in California had to lay off workers and let their crops go to waste, since it would be pointless to harvest and store them. This was a serious blow to many growers and to the state itself, since California is the country's top grower of cantaloupes.

That background should prepare you well for our next post, in which we will look at what sort of lawsuits cantaloupe-growing businesses might see arise from this public health crisis.

Source: The Sacramento Bee, "Listeria outbreak devastates Calif. cantaloupes," Gosia Wozniacka, Oct. 14, 2011