Family sues kebab chain and its beef supplier, alleging its beef infected their child with E. coli
A child ate beef kofta at The Kebab Shop last month in Atwater Village. Days later, he ended up in an emergency room, where medical testing later confirmed an E. coli infection that resulted in a life-threatening kidney complication, according to his attorney.
Now, his family is suing the restaurant chain, as well as the manufacturer that supplied the raw ground beef kofta.
Attorneys William D. Marler and Trevor Quirk filed a personal injury lawsuit May 29 in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of Samantha Sabaite and her child.
They are suing TKS Restaurants, parent company to The Kebab Shop, which operates in California, Texas and Florida, as well as Olympia Food Industries Inc., the Illinois manufacturer that supplied the minced beef.
The complaint alleges the defendants failed to manufacture, supply and serve food safe for human consumption and violated federal food safety laws and USDA performance standards governing ground beef.
According to the lawsuit, the child consumed the kofta at The Kebab Shop on Los Feliz Boulevard on or about April 1. Two days later, he developed symptoms consistent with E. coli infection, including nausea, vomiting, severe fatigue and bloody diarrhea.
On April 6, his mother brought him to the emergency room at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, where testing confirmed Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, the lawsuit claims.
As the child’s condition deteriorated, he was transferred to the intensive care unit at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, where he was diagnosed with hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, a life-threatening blood vessel condition that can lead to kidney complications, according to the complaint.
The child, the complaint says, required dialysis and blood transfusions and suffered seizures and decreased pancreatic function.
Whole genome sequencing linked his illness to the outbreak strain associated with The Kebab Shop beef kofta, according to the lawsuit.
Marler, who has been litigating E. coli cases since the 1993 Jack in the Box outbreak, which killed four children and infected more than 700 people, considers his client’s illness and a possible outbreak now under investigation “alarming,” given the decades of improvements in testing and food safety interventions.
On May 24, testing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service confirmed the ground beef supplied by Olympia Foods was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.
Earlier this week, the California Department of Public Health announced it was investigating a suspected E. coli outbreak linked to The Kebab Shop chain between March 27 and April 30.
The Kebab Shop is fully cooperating with public health officials and voluntarily paused sales of grilled beef kofta at all locations on May 18, according to a statement from the company.
“Food safety is the absolute foundation of our business,” the company said. “We take any threat to public health with the utmost seriousness, and we continue to work diligently alongside public health officials and food safety experts to ensure the integrity of our products.”
The Kebab Shop does not comment on pending litigation, according to the statement.
As of May 19, nine California residents have been infected, six of them children, according to the California Department of Public Health. Five individuals have been hospitalized, and two have developed HUS.
“Once again the victims are disproportionately children,” Marler said.
The parents of a 3-year-old girl who experienced acute kidney failure after eating contaminated beef at The Kebab Shop in Costa Mesa also filed a lawsuit against the restaurant chain and Olympia Foods.
