Hail to Innova Evo, Holistic Select and the like.

DOWN WITH MENU FOODS, DIAMOND FOODS AND THE LIKE!!!!!!!!!

In theory, the concept of class actions isn’t a bad one. The idea is that those harmed often find it difficult or costly to bring a suit as an individual action. These firms do incure considerable costs in the course of bring these actions, with nothing out of pocket from those being represented. If they lose, they end up working for free. The problem is they’ve gotten lazy. They won’t take a case unless they think it’s a slam dunk. Then they settle too quickly to get a fast paycheck, rather than taking the bad guys to the mat and holding their feet to the fire.

While I doubt the offer was made in good faith, Menu originally said they’d pay vet bills. The attorneys jumped on board and sued for vet bills. If the settlement offer is already on the table, there’s no need for the attorneys at all. On top of everything else, the attorneys locked pet owners out of settling directly with the company practically out of the gate on this one. The move was basically to force pet owners to pay a cut to a middle man a lot of them weren’t interested in dealing with in the first place.

On the other hand, there are people who hire an accountant to fill out their 1040 EZ and are totally baffled by anything more complex than making change for a dollar. Without class action attorneys, they’d be cut out of the process completely.

I don’t know what the solution is, but there’s definitely room for improvement.

John Graham has a really good novel based on this…the idea being that you accumulate lots of class actions….then reap huge amounts of money while those harmed get little.

No kudos due. It looks like my effort at the Federal level failed. As my suit involves non-recalled pet food, the judge evidently decided and I’m not a “purported class member”, and don’t have standing to raise an objection.

The basic situation is this: Menu Foods made a pile of food it tagged “organized product”, which is missing entire days of production, that it wants plaintiffs to have. Menu Foods made a second pile of about 15 million packages of pet food that it wants to destroy. That pile consists of both recalled and unrecalled pet food. This body of evidence is tagged “unorganized product”.

This is the stuff that is loaded with cyanuric acid, acetaminophen, as well as melamine and who knows what all else. So, if your cat ate a can of melamine gravy style pet food, and the next meal consisted of unrecalled cyanuric acid style pet food, and your cat dropped dead 5 days later, you will never be able to prove what happened, as all the evidence will be gone. Exit Menu Foods laughing.

As close as I can tell, the attorneys for pet owners are in the process of cutting a deal to sell the pet owners down the river.

For those who are purported members of the class, and may be interested in what’s going on, the case is:

Civil Action No. 07-2867 (NHL)
MDL Docket No. 1850
IN RE: Pet Fod Products Liability Litigations

The Judge is: Noel L. Hillman

The address is:

The United States District Court, District of New Jersey
Mitchell H. Cohen Building & U.S. Courthouse
4th & Cooper Streets Room 1050
Camden, NJ 08101

Phone : 856-757-5021

But as you can see, WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN.

Until the FDA or Justice slaps the cuffs on a CEO of a PFI member pet food company, and tells the truth about all the poisons, instead of parroting the melamine cover up story, then it is all just more of the same, blah, lie, cover up, more lying TV ads, blah, lie some more.

Purina makes a lot of deadly pet food too, that Beneful kills more dogs than all the dog pounds in Texas.