Family Settles for $13.5 Million After Girl Dies in South Milwaukee Sizzler E. coli Outbreak

In July 2000, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 ran through two Sizzler restaurants in the Milwaukee area. About 140 people fell ill. Investigators traced the bacteria to contaminated beef that had been brought into the restaurants, where raw meat and its juices reached food that customers ate without further cooking.

One of the people who got sick was a three-year-old girl. She had not eaten any meat during the family's visit. The watermelon she ate had been cross-contaminated by tainted beef. Within days she developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a complication of E. coli that shuts down the kidneys and destroys blood cells. She died about a week after the meal.

Her family hired William Cannon of Cannon & Dunphy to pursue a wrongful-death claim. The defense pointed in several directions at once: the national Sizzler chain, the local franchise operator, and the meat supplier. Cannon's team built the case around the source of the bacteria. Genetic testing showed that the strain found in the sick patrons matched the strain in an unopened package of beef produced by Excel Corp., a subsidiary of Cargill.

The case did not move in a straight line. A Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge dismissed the claim in 2004. The family appealed, and the Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal, finding that the suit was consistent with federal food-safety law rather than blocked by it. Excel asked the United States Supreme Court to step in. The Court declined, and the claim went back to Milwaukee for resolution.

In June 2008, eight years after the girl's death, the parties reached a settlement of $13.5 million. Excel paid $8.5 million and E&B Management Co., the franchise holder for the two restaurants, paid $2 million, with the balance coming from other defendants. The restaurants had closed by then. The family's attorney described the recovery as among the largest in the country for a food-borne illness. Because the case resolved by agreement rather than by a jury verdict, the figure was the negotiated amount and was not reduced on appeal.