Marler on liability

If you haven't checked out http://www.marlerblog.com/, you may want to. The Seattle lawyer is in the news a ton, first for representing victims of E. coli on spinach, and now for salmonella on peanut butter. In this story about Marler, reprinted on his blog, he seems to say it doesn't matter to him where the fault lies in foodborne illness outbreaks, he and his clients will get paid.
From the Verdictsearch story:

Once the food companies and their insurers understand the concept that they are liable if they are in the chain of distribution, no matter where in the chain the contamination occurred, the focus shifts to damages and what a jury would be likely to award, Marler said.

Later in the piece..

Marler gave an example of his approach to settlement in another set of cases involving contaminated lettuce. "I went into mediation and all the defense attorneys were pointing fingers at each other, so I put my head down on the table," Marler said. When the mediator asked him if he was okay, Marler said to the distributor in the lettuce case, "In a few months your insurance company is going to settle and then the rest of you are going to settle and until then you're going to keep fighting me." Marler then stood up and announced, "But I'm in Seattle, it's a beautiful day and I'm going to the beach."


TK: If there are any growers and processors who don't feel motivated to go to the nth degree to meet rigorous food safety standards, they may well be reminded by their insurance premiums.