ConAgra Settlement: A New Era of Company Liability?

ConAgra Grocery Products has agreed to pay a $11.2 million fine and plead guilty to a federal misdemeanor charge stemming from a 2006-2007 Salmonella outbreak that sickened more than 700. The fine—the largest ever levied in a food-safety case—will be paid to resolve allegations that the company shipped contaminated peanut butter under its Peter Pan brand and Walmart’s Great Value label. It marks the latest in a string of successful efforts by the Justice Department to hold food companies or their executives accountable for outbreaks of foodborne illnesses that, added together, have sickened thousands.

Read the full Wall Street Journal article.