Hundreds of Victims in Manyeo Gimbap Mass Food Poisoning Incident... Collective Lawsuit to Proceed

The joint litigation platform 'Hwanan Saramdeul' has been recruiting participants for 'Compensation for damages related to the group food poisoning at a gimbap restaurant' since the 6th.
/Photo by Hwanan Saramdeul capture

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Seohyun] Amid a mass food poisoning incident at Manyeo Gimbap resulting in approximately 270 patients, the victims have initiated a class-action lawsuit.

According to the legal community on the 10th, the joint litigation platform 'Hwanan Saramdeul' has been recruiting participants for 'Compensation for Damages from the Gimbap Shop Mass Food Poisoning' since the 6th. Attorney Park Youngsaeng of the law firm Jeongjin began the recruitment through this platform.

Attorney Park, who is representing the victims, stated, "The number of patients reporting symptoms related to the mass food poisoning is increasing exponentially every day. Considering that 4,200 gimbap rolls were sold at the affected locations over the past five days and about 1,000 people purchased them, it is difficult to even predict the future scale of the damage."

He added, "The company only issued a rather generic apology and made no specific mention of confirming the number of victims, concrete compensation plans for the victims, or measures to prevent recurrence," explaining the reason for filing this lawsuit.

Attorney Park is preparing the class-action lawsuit with a participation fee of 200,000 KRW per victim. He explained, "We plan to claim damages from the company that sold the gimbap for each victim and will also pursue separate settlements during the litigation process to expedite the resolution of the main case."

Some food poisoning victims have expressed their intention to participate in the class-action lawsuit through media outlets, stating that "the damage to health, as well as temporal, material, and psychological harm, is severe."

Earlier, from the 29th of last month to the 2nd, about 270 consumers who purchased gimbap at two Manyeo Gimbap branches in Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, showed symptoms of food poisoning, with about 40 of them hospitalized for treatment.

In this regard, Seongnam City announced that a detailed inspection detected Salmonella bacteria in many of the test samples collected from the food poisoning patients and the two gimbap specialty store branches. Victims complained of abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and fever, and in severe cases, were even advised to undergo kidney dialysis, causing shock.

In response, Manyeo Gimbap posted an apology on its social media channels, stating, "We apologize to the patients undergoing treatment due to our gimbap and to those who have suffered unexpected disruptions in their lives. We will accept any measures once the epidemiological investigation and cause identification results from the relevant administrative authorities are released."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.