Lawsuit against Huntley High over E. coli outbreak dropped – for now

Just over a month after two families sued Huntley School District 158 following last year’s E. coli outbreak at Huntley High that sickened 15 people, the lawsuit has been withdrawn, although the legal battle might not be over.

McHenry County court records indicate that the plaintiffs asked for a “voluntary dismissal” of the case, which was granted Tuesday. The plaintiffs also have the ability to refile, but will have to reimburse the defendant the cost of doing so.

The lawsuit was filed Sept. 10, just before the one-year anniversary of the outbreak. The outbreak sickened 15 people and hospitalized two of them. A 16th person also was diagnosed during the outbreak but was not known to have eaten at the Huntley High cafeteria. A health department investigation associated the illness back to a lettuce station. The lawsuit said the students were seriously ill and were permanently injured from eating the contaminated lettuce.

In the lawsuit, the families had sought more than $100,000 in compensation and had accused the district of negligence. The lawsuit also alleged that the district had a worker who they knew had E. coli who was allowed to handle food in the cafeteria.

The health department opened an investigation into an E. coli outbreak after officials at Northwestern Medicine Huntley Hospital told the health department that three students had showed E. coli symptoms and had been tested for the illness with results pending.

Officials at the time said there were nine cases associated with the outbreak, but the final tally was almost double that when officials updated their online contagious illness reports in December 2023.

The case was due in court in December, but that was canceled as a result of the dismissal.

The families, District 158 and the attorneys representing the families and the school district were not immediately available for comment Wednesday. It’s unclear whether the lawsuit will be refiled, but the families’ legal motion suggests that it could be, noting that “following the filing of this lawsuit, by and through counsel’s ongoing pre-litigation discovery, [the] plaintiffs have learned that this particular outbreak may have involved sufficiently more parties than originally anticipated.”