A food poisoning lawyer says he has been retained by dozens of people who got sick after dining recently at the LongHorn Steakhouse in Fairview Heights.
Three lawsuits have been filed so far in St. Clair County, according to circuit clerk records.
“We’ve been inundated with calls from people who ate at LongHorn Steakhouse and then got shigella food poisoning,” attorney Jory Lange said in an interview Monday with the Belleville News-Democrat. “We’ve been retained by over 80 people who got sick in this outbreak, and the calls keep coming.
“So this has turned into a really big outbreak, I think much bigger than anyone had expected.”
Last Wednesday, the St. Clair County Health Department announced it was investigating an outbreak of shigellosis among customers who had eaten at the restaurant at 6115 N. Illinois St.
Shigellosis is caused by a group of bacteria called shigella, and symptoms include diarrhea and fever.
The health department is working with the Illinois Department of Public Health on the investigation. Restaurant representatives are cooperating with officials and working to determine a source of the infection, according to the health department.
The LongHorn Steakhouse remains closed as of Monday, according to a news release from the health department. The restaurant has been closed since last Wednesday.
The first lawsuit related to the outbreak was filed last Thursday. Lange, who is based in Texas, and local personal injury lawyer Eric Carlson filed the lawsuit in St. Clair County Thursday, according to a press release from Lange’s law firm and confirmed in circuit court records.
On Friday, Lange and Carlson filed the second and third lawsuits. More are likely to follow as dozens of people who got sick after eating at the Fairview Heights restaurant have hired the duo to represent them, Lange said.
The 80-plus people who have retained Lange are a mix of people who’ve been hospitalized, had a positive stool test, been to the doctor or have the signs and symptoms of shigellosis in the correct onset period after eating, he said.
“This is the biggest shigella outbreak that I know of that’s happened in the United States in recent years,” Lange said.
“In terms of … the severity of how it affects people, that’s something we won’t know for months,” he added.
There are some rare complications associated with shigellosis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including reactive arthritis, which affects about 2% of people infected with certain types of shigella bacteria, and hemolytic–uremic syndrome, which mostly commonly occurs in children.
Lange said there are two goals with the lawsuits. The first is to get people compensation for their medical bills, lost wages and “the horrible, horrible experiences they’ve had.”
The second is to try to get to the bottom of the outbreak and determine how it happened to prevent future outbreaks, especially since shigella outbreaks at restaurants “are almost always preventable,” Lange said.
Health department tracking cases
The health department is now seeking recent customers’ help as it continues to investigate the cause of the outbreak.
In an attempt to narrow down what food or foods are potentially linked to the outbreak, the health department is asking anyone who dined at the restaurant from Sept. 21 to last Wednesday to fill out a survey asking what food they ate.
The health department did not have an update Monday on previously reported numbers.
In a news release Friday, the department reported it had received 14 shigella reports from people testing positive after dining at the LongHorn Steakhouse in Fairview Heights between Sept. 21 and 22, with six requiring hospitalization. An additional 23 people had reported illness consistent with shigellosis after dining at the restaurant between Sept. 14 and Oct. 1.
The ages of those affected — including the initial 14 and 23 potential cases — range from 2 to 91 years old.
Restaurant inspections
Restaurants in St. Clair County receive unannounced, routine inspections from the health department two to three times a year. The health department also sends inspectors to investigate complaints or to follow up on issues they identified during previous inspections.
According to the department’s public health inspection database, it conducted a complaint inspection at the LongHorn Steakhouse in Fairview Heights on Sept. 27, which falls within the timeframe of the outbreak. No violations are currently listed.
At its most recent routine inspection on Aug. 23, the establishment received four low-ranking violations.
All of them were “core” violations, the lowest ranking that regulators give certain health code violations as they are not closely tied to food safety. They were for missing thermometers in the salad and quarterback coolers, grease and soil accumulation on both salamander cheese melters, grease dripping from the exhaust hood system and noncompliance with a law requiring all food handlers to receive training in basic food handling principles, which is a common violation.
Editor's note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat. Kelly Smits is a reporter for the Belleville News-Democrat, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
