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If you ever worried about
getting sick from food you
ate at a restaurant, about E. coli, Salmonella,
hepatitis, undercooked meat, tainted spinach, unpasteurized fruit
juice, or even toxic peanut butter, you’ve been in Marler’s world.
Remember Jack in the Box, source of the nation’s first major
food-borne illness epidemic? In 1993 sick children filled Seattle’s
hospitals, and the city ran short of life-support equipment. The
family of a very sick 10-year-old girl hired Marler. Amid the
seizures, strokes, and organ failure she was suffering, her doctors
said that she only had days, at some times just minutes, to
live.
Marler, at this point 36, had moved to a firm that let him
develop a practice litigating for plaintiffs, though the partners
didn’t think much money could be made in that direction. On the day
Brianne Kiner’s family retained him, he drove to the University of
Washington Medical School and asked for everything the library had
on E. coli O157:H7. He pored over the details of the deadly
bacterium that can trigger a reaction shutting down the kidneys,
the pancreas, and the brain. This was one of the worst cases of
food poisoning in U.S. history. None other in recent memory had
affected so many people so violently, and so quickly.
“It was all happening here in Seattle. The hospitals were like
war zones,” he recalls. “Kids lined up in the hallways sharing
dialysis machines.” When Bill got the case, he didn’t even know how
to say E. coli. After filling his head with the medical
details of the disease, he knew more than any other attorney in
Seattle. He filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Kiners, who had no
means of paying their enormous medical bills. Using the media savvy
he had developed on the Pullman city council, he called a
television station to announce what he had done. Brianne became the
public face of the E. coli outbreak, and within weeks his
client list grew to more than 200.
In 1993 Bruce Clark worked on the other side of the Jack in the
Box cases representing Foodmaker, the restaurant chain’s parent
company. He quickly noted how Marler stood out from the other
plaintiffs’ attorneys. “You sort out pretty quickly who is doing
the work and who is along for the ride,” says Bruce. “Bill was,
probably more than any other attorney, a go-getter in terms of
advancing the case.” He was out visiting clients and doctors,
understanding the fast food industry, studying up on the disease
and the laws, trying to absorb it all. “Most of the plaintiff’s
attorneys to some extent were just lining up to enjoy the benefits
of the ground that had been tilled before. Marler was actually out
behind the plow.” Marler also freely shared his findings and
advised other attorneys on negotiating settlements.
Four children died in that outbreak. Brianne Kiner, Marler’s
client, survived, but only after spending six weeks in a coma and
six months in the hospital. His efforts resulted in a $15.6 million
settlement for Brianne, the largest personal-injury settlement in
the history of the state of Washington. The money is helping her
recover—she had to learn to walk and read again—and will also pay
for a lifetime of medical issues, including diabetes and kidney
problems, resulting from her E. coli poisoning. Marler also
negotiated settlements of at least $1.5 million for several other
victims.
The mountains of work he had done with the Jack in the Box case
made him an expert in food-borne illness, not only in terms of
understanding E. coli, but the whole food production system.
“This time I felt like I was doing the right thing,” he says.
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Why is Washington at the forefront of food-borne illness?
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