Tenino Raw Milk Producer Says Lawsuit Is Baseless

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In response to a lawsuit filed by a Yelm family against her dairy farm, Tenino's Cozy Vale Creamery owner Laurie Barta is speaking out.

"There's a huge push right now against (raw milk)," she said. "I'm not the only little dairy that has gone through this."

On Jan. 2, Marler Clark law firm from Seattle filed a lawsuit in Thurston County Superior Court alleging that Barta's Tenino dairy is responsible for the illness of a 5-year-old Yelm girl.

On its website, Marler Clark claims it is the nation's leading law firm representing victims of food-borne illnesses related to raw milk.

The girl, identified in court documents by the initials T.C., required a number of treatments in November 2011, including a blood transfusion due to hemolytic uremic syndrome, according to the lawsuit.

HUS is considered a common cause of kidney failure in children, according to court documents.

Similar to two other cases reported since August 2011, the lawsuit claims, T.C. suffered E. coli poisoning after reportedly drinking raw milk produced by Cozy Vale.

Barta told the Nisqually Valley News this week that she spoke with the girl's father. She said he was angry.

"He expressed to me that he wanted to end all raw milk," she said. "He didn't want any child to get sick."

It's horrible that a young child suffered from E. coli poisoning, Barta said, but she maintains that no E. coli was found in her dairy's milk.

In a statement published on her dairy's website, Barta claims an inspector from the Washington Department of Agriculture didn't find any strains of E. coli in the multiple milk samples that were tested.

"The issue of the milk testing positive or not doesn't matter," said Drew Falkenstein, an attorney with Marler Clark.

E. coli was found on the milking room floor, in the processing room and on the head of a sponge mop after the entire farm was swabbed in November, he alleged.

"I was told, like I stated on my website, that the strain that was found on my floor was a very common strain," Barta said, responding to the attorney's comments.

"I'm also told that's very, very hard to prove."

All raw milk products have a warning label, required by WSDA, Barta said.



That label says, "Pregnant women, children, the elderly and persons with lowered resistance to disease have the highest risk of harm from use of this product."

"There's a reason for (the warning label)," Barta said. "The couple ignored it."

WSDA communications director Jason Kelly said the warning label is required to inform consumers that raw milk has the "potential to cause foodborne illness."

"The only way to ensure that milk doesn't contain harmful bacteria is to pasteurize it," he said.

Barta said her business has been suffering since the reports were released that her dairy is being sued.

"Right now, in the dairy industry, raw milk is this hot button," she said. "It's disheartening when we have a trial in the newspaper... But, the proof is not there yet, especially since they didn't find it in any of the milk samples."

Falkenstein said that odds are the matter won't be decided in a courtroom.

"It's a question of what level of damages are appropriate," he said. "It may resolve short of the trial and it may not be that long of a haul, but it certainly could be."

Barta said her raw milk products went back on the market on Dec. 10 after she received a "reintroduction letter" from the WSDA.

"After making improvements to their infrastructure and processes, the firm submitted both environmental samples and milk samples to our lab for analysis," Kelly said.

"No pathogens were found at the firm or in the milk."

Cozy Vale products are sold at two Olympia Food Co-op locations and Marlene's Market in Tacoma and Federal Way.

Meanwhile, Barta is hoping that her business will endure the controversy that currently engulfs it.

"If I don't survive, then I don't survive," she said.