Marler Clark Drafts Citizen Petition to Protect the Public with Full Disclosure by the
FDA at the Outset of a Foodborne Illness Outbreak

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The E.coli attorneys at Marler Clark have filed a lawsuit on behalf of Gayle Gottlieb of Pembroke, North Carolina, and Meaghan Egan Bright of Somerville, Massachusetts, against Trader Joe’s Company in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The complaint alleges that Tarragon Chicken Salad Wraps, bought at Trader Joe’s stores in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Allston, Massachusetts, in late August were contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. Both women were hospitalized, both infections were confirmed by laboratory testing, and both were told by their local health departments that they are part of a multistate E.coli outbreak. Complaint #2:26-cv-12017

On October 7, FDA’s outbreak investigation table reported 38 illnesses and, for the first time, identified the vehicle as ready-to-eat multi-ingredient chicken wraps. FDA said the USDA-regulated wraps were “proactively removed from the market before the link to the outbreak was confirmed” and are past their shelf life. There has been no recall and no public health alert, and neither agency has named the manufacturer, the brand, the retailer or the states where people got sick.

Ms. Gottlieb bought three of the wraps at a Trader Joe’s store in Myrtle Beach on August 23 and ate the first on August 27. Two days later she was hunched over with abdominal cramping; by August 30 her diarrhea was bloody and she was in the emergency department at UNC Southeastern Hospital in Lumberton, North Carolina, where a stool sample tested positive for Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157. Discharged on August 31, she returned that night, severely dehydrated, and was taken by ambulance to Scotland Memorial Hospital in Laurinburg, where she was admitted on September 2. The North Carolina State Laboratory of Public Health confirmed E. coli O157 and Shiga toxin 2. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services classified her as a confirmed case in a multistate outbreak, assigned her illness CDC cluster code 2609MLEXH-2, and recorded the source of her illness as a “wrap from Trader Joe’s.”

Ms. Bright bought a Tarragon Chicken Salad Wrap at a Trader Joe’s store in Allston on August 24 and ate it that day. She fell ill on August 27, and by August 30 she was passing blood and went to Cambridge Health Alliance, which sent her home. When the vomiting and bloody diarrhea did not stop, she called an ambulance and was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was hospitalized from August 31 through September 6 with pain she describes as the worst she has ever experienced. Her stool tested positive for Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, and her physicians warned her she was at risk for hemolytic uremic syndrome, the kidney-failure complication of the infection. The Somerville Board of Health and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health told her that she was part of the outbreak.

Two people who have never met bought the same wrap at Trader Joe’s stores in
South Carolina and Massachusetts a day apart, and within a week both were in
 an emergency room passing blood. Both have laboratory-confirmed Shiga
toxin-producing E. coli. Both were told by their health departments that they
are part of this outbreak. North Carolina’s public-health record lists the source
of Ms. Gottlieb’s illness as a wrap from Trader Joe’s. The public-health record
connects the product to the illness. The complaint follows that evidence.

— Ilana Korchia, attorney, Marler Clark

The complaint pleads strict product liability, negligence, negligence per se and breach of implied warranty, and demands a jury trial. It alleges that two consumers in different states who independently bought and ate the same named product in the same week, and then developed laboratory-confirmed infections with the outbreak pathogen within its incubation period, present “powerful evidence of a common-source exposure.”

Ms. Bright spent a week at Massachusetts General Hospital in the worst pain of
her life, keeping her family’s visits short because she was afraid of infecting
them. Ms. Gottlieb went to the emergency room twice in two days and left the
second time in an ambulance. Both are working adults who bought a sealed,
ready-to-eat meal from a national grocery chain, trusting it was safe to eat.
They did nothing wrong. Now, the food they once trusted is food they’re afraid
to eat.

Trader Joe’s knows who made these wraps, what went into them, which store
s received them and when they came off the shelves. None of that is in the public
record. Discovery will put it there.

— Ilana Korchia

Marler Clark has been here before. In 2013, when E. coli O157:H7 in ready-to-eat salads and sandwich wraps made by Glass Onion Catering and sold at Trader Joe’s sickened 33 people in four states, the manufacturer and the retailer were named publicly and about 181,620 pounds of product were recalled while the outbreak was still being counted. This time, the only public document connecting the outbreak to a brand and a store is the complaint filed today by two of the people it made sick.

Thirty-eight people are sick, and all the federal government has told them is a
category: ready-to-eat chicken wraps. FDA and USDA know the manufacturer,
the brand and the stores. They have said none of it, because the wraps were
pulled before the link was confirmed and are now past their shelf life. That
protects the next customer. It does nothing for the people already sick, or for the
ones who will be counted over the next month, who need to be able to tell an
emergency room exactly what they ate.

— William D. Marler, managing partner, Marler Clark

Our clients learned where their illnesses came from because a health
department interviewer asked them what they ate. The public is learning it
today from a federal complaint. In 2013 the government named the
manufacturer and the retailer and recalled the product while people were still
getting sick. Thirteen years later the agencies have the same kind of information
and have decided the public does not need it. No recall, no name. No recall, no
store list. A company that pulls a product before the government finishes
connecting the dots is treated better than one that waits for the recall. What is
missing is not authority. It is a rule that requires the agencies to say what they know.

— William D. Marler

Mr. Marler has drafted two citizen petitions to FDA that address the two gaps this outbreak fell through. The first asks FDA to establish by rule that the identity of a firm implicated in an outbreak is not confidential commercial information, and to publish the suspect food, the states, the hospitalizations and the cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome while an investigation is open. The second asks FDA to publish the stores and institutions that received a recalled food, as USDA has done by rule since 2008, to classify every recall within ten days, and to treat the removal of an outbreak-implicated food as a recall whether the company calls it a recall, a market withdrawal or a proactive removal. Both drafts are being circulated for comment before filing.

I am circulating both petitions for comment before I file them, and I would
welcome the food industry’s input. But FDA does not need my petitions to act.
The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act already allows it to report the results of its
investigations. It could name these wraps today.

— William D. Marler

Anyone who ate a ready-to-eat chicken wrap in late August or September and developed diarrhea, especially bloody diarrhea, should see a physician and ask for a stool test; antibiotics and anti-diarrheal medications can increase the risk of hemolytic uremic syndrome in E. coli O157:H7 infections. A copy of the complaint is available on request.

About Marler Clark

Marler Clark, Inc., PS, The Food Safety Law Firm, is the nation’s leading law firm representing victims of foodborne illness. Founded by Bill Marler in the wake of the 1993 Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak, the firm has represented thousands of individuals in E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter, Cyclospora, hepatitis A and norovirus outbreaks and has recovered more than $850 million on their behalf. The firm’s work is the subject of the book and the Emmy Award-winning Netflix documentary Poisoned. Marler Clark also publishes Food Safety News. The firm is based on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

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SOURCE Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm