Supporting Material:

"Meat Products Ltd (Meat) is an Ontario-based food processing and distribution company. It supplies deli meat and related products throughout Canada and parts of the United States. Meat's CEO was appalled to discover that one of its production plants was contaminated with a bacterium that causes listeriosis - a serious, food borne illness. Around this same time, Jennifer Jones consumed a deli product made by Meat and became seriously ill with listeriosis. She contacted a lawyer who was immediately in touch with Meat. Now that Meat is aware of a possible listeriosis contamination, what risk management steps should it take going forward? What factors are important in determining what strategy or strategies it employs? Assume Jennifer makes the decision to sue Meat in negligence, what must she prove to succeed?"

Area of Law and Present Legal Issue(s):Organizations have universal business ethics that require them to ensure safety for their staff as well as their customers. Failing to comply with all safety requirements can result in legal issues such as being fined, sued, forced closures, etc. Meat Products Ltd has now come in contact with some liability issues. Contamination within the food industry can cause many problems, especially when a consumer becomes ill due to sed contamination. This violates people's rights to life, liberty, and security of the person under section 7 of the Charter. In this case, Jennifer Jones has consumed a deli product from Meat and is now quite ill. If J.Jones makes the decision to sue Meat Products Ltd in negligence, they will face the area of law generally known as product law. Product law, by definition, is liability relating to the design, manufacture, or sale of the product (Canadian Business and the Law, D.Duplessis - pg.282). They may be tried for failing to test products properly in order to detect such contamination causing illness to a person.

Elements of the Legal Issue(s):

In our above case-study it seems that Jennifer has consumed the deli product which was manufactured by the company and then Jennifer started suffering illness due to that product which means she can definitely sue the company and they can be legally sued for negligence under the act of class action lawsuit with having the personal injury lawyer. Under theFood and Drugs Act(FDA), which gives legal power to take actions against the company by providing sufficient evidence. Moreover, there are three more agencies who work on Food dept and they are Health Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). In addition to this, all these federal departments have a checklist where restaurants and companies need to follow through and then the food should be served to customers. In this law it states customers complaints regarding this are considered first before the company or restaurant interferes in it. Furthermore, this law has been implemented due to the justification of everyone's endangerment/well-being therefore challenging the legislation may come with difficulty. For instance, retailer Maple Leaf Foods is responsible for Mr. Sub Franchisees financial losses and 22 deaths occurred due to the bacteria Listeria outbreak. According to the class-action lawsuit Mr. Sub advised that they only use the meat approved by them and then roast beef and corned beef was banned due to the outbreak. Moreover, Maple Leaf Foods didn't take the outbreak seriously and then they deliberately sent the items in spite of knowing the outage. Finally, Mr. Sub took action against them for the financial losses and for the reputations which got hurt due to the contaminated food.

NEEDS TO BE SOLVED-

Analysis of Legal Issue(s):