Lawsuits settled in Tyson plant’s workers’ COVID deaths

Tyson Fresh Meats has settled lawsuits with the estates of three workers at its Storm Lake pork plant who died of COVID-19 contracted in 2020 while the facility continued operating during the early days of pandemic.

Terms of the settlements were not disclosed in court documents and attorneys for the estates and Tyson did not respond to emails seeking comment.

The settlements were reached in Buena Vista County District Court with the estates of Kenneth Jones of Alta and Juan Jauregui Samudio and Victor Barahona Rivera, both of Storm Lake.

In the lawsuits, their survivors claimed Tyson Foods failed to take prompt action to space employees apart along its tightly packed processing lines, erect barriers between the workers, slow the pace of the lines and provide masks and other protective gear.

The families also claimed Tyson managers did an insufficient job of testing employees for infections and cleaning the factories.

“Tyson and its managerial employees ... required (Jones, Rivera and Samudio) to work in an environment rife with (coronavirus) when they know or should have known that Tyson wasn’t implementing the necessary safety precautions,” attorneys Mary Hamilton, representing the Samudio and Rivera families, and Willis Hamilton, representing the Joneses, wrote in almost identical petitions.

Tyson responded to the lawsuits by saying the company followed federal government instructions to “help avert an impending national food shortage.”

Other lawsuits await Supreme Court of Iowa decision

Storm Lake was among the hardesthit meatpacking towns in the country. The company reported 1,476 infections through February 2021 at the Tyson pork processing plant there and a turkey processing facility of Hillshire Brands, a Tyson subsidiary.

Additional lawsuits included one filed by the estate of Michael Everhard of Fonda, who also died of COVID-19 while working at Tyson’s Storm Lake plant, are currently awaiting an Iowa Supreme Court ruling on whether district court or worker’s compensation hearings are the appropriate entity to decide wrongful death lawsuits filed by the estates of meat packing workers.