Listeriosis: First offers to victims

Those who were affected could see justice as Tiger Brands begins settlement for the deadly 2017-18 outbreak linked to contaminated food

- Sheree Bega

South Africa’s largest food producer, Tiger Brands, has agreed to settle claims from certain groups in the listeriosis class-action lawsuit, seven years after the country experienced the world’s deadliest outbreak of the bacterial infection.

The 2017-18 outbreak caused 218 deaths out of more than 1000 infections as a result of people consuming contaminated processed food products — mainly polony cold meat and Vienna sausages — which were produced at the Tiger Brands facility in Polokwane and distributed from its Germiston facility.

This week, Tiger Brands confirmed attorneys representing its lead reinsurer QBE Insurance Group Limited had presented a settlement offer to the plaintiffs’ attorneys as “part of a roadmap to a possible overall resolution of the listeriosis class action”.

“The lead reinsurer, having primary conduct of the defence of the class action against Tiger Brands, has with Tiger Brands’ support and agreement authorised the insurers’ attorneys to make settlement offers to specific named persons,” the company said in a statement.

It said these were members of classes of claimants who suffered damage as a result of listeriosis caused by genotype L1-SL6-ST6-CT4148 of listeria monocytogenes (ST6) — the outbreak strain.

These are claimants who contracted (or whose mothers contracted) listeriosis caused by ST6; claimants whose legal breadwinners, on whom they were legally dependent, died of listeriosis caused by ST6 and claimants whose legal dependents, who were in their care, contracted listeriosis caused by ST6.

The settlement offer, made on 25 April, includes an undertaking to pay the claimants’ proven or agreed compensatory damages in terms of section 61 of the Consumer Protection Act. “The offer is subject to certain conditions and has been made without admission of liability and in full and final settlement of the claims of the claimants.”