Florida woman dies from Publix’s frozen blueberries

Grocery store freezer aisle with ice cream and frozen desserts — Photo: Sheila Fitzgerald / Shutterstock

A Florida family says a bag of frozen blueberries from Publix ended in a mother’s death, and now a lawsuit wants a jury to hear the whole story.

Quick Take

A wrongful-death lawsuit filed in Pinellas County claims Karla Mullins died June 20 after eating GreenWise organic frozen blueberries bought at Publix.
Federal health officials tied the same product to a multistate E. coli O145:H28 outbreak investigated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Publix recalled every lot of GreenWise Organic Whole Blueberries and Whole Mixed Berries in late July, and the FDA later upgraded the recall to its highest danger rating.
The lawsuit names Publix and distributor Quirch Foods, accusing both of failing to catch the contamination before it reached shoppers.

The Lawsuit’s Core Claim

Richard Mullins filed suit on behalf of his wife, Karla, saying she bought GreenWise organic frozen blueberries at a Publix in Largo and ate them weeks before falling ill. The complaint says she died June 20, and it blames the berries for her death. The family filed the case in Pinellas County Circuit Court, and it names Publix Super Markets as a defendant.

The suit argues Publix, as the seller, bears responsibility for what it put on its shelves. It also names Quirch Foods, described as an intermediate distributor, claiming both companies failed to properly inspect and test the berries before they reached customers.

Federal Investigators Traced a Deadly Contamination

The lawsuit did not emerge in a vacuum. Weeks before Karla Mullins died, the FDA and CDC opened a joint investigation into an outbreak of E. coli O145:H28 tied to frozen organic blueberries sold under the GreenWise label at Publix stores. Investigators traced the contamination back to a lot code from a Chilean supplier, Frutas y Hortalizas del Sur S.A., which recalled its own frozen blueberries under that same lot number.

Publix issued its own recall notice on July 29, pulling all lots of GreenWise Organic Whole Blueberries and Whole Mixed Berries nationwide, citing possible E. coli contamination. The recalled berries had shipped to stores across eight Southeastern states, including Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas, putting them squarely in the path of millions of shoppers before anyone knew something was wrong.

Regulators Raised the Alarm Level

What started as a standard recall grew more serious fast. The FDA reclassified the recall as a Class 1 event, its most severe category, reserved for situations where using the product could cause serious harm or death. That classification does not get handed out lightly. It tells consumers and retailers that the risk on the table isn’t hypothetical, it’s the kind that lands people in hospital beds.

The CDC later declared the outbreak over as of September 21, but not before it had already left its mark on the public record and, according to this lawsuit, on at least one Florida family. Publix, for its part, told at least one outlet it would be inappropriate to comment on pending litigation, leaving the family’s account as the version of events now before a judge.

A Familiar Legal Fight Over Food Safety

Food recall lawsuits like this one follow a pattern seen after past outbreaks tied to peanut butter, spinach, and other packaged goods. A public health agency identifies a contaminated product, then grieving families or sick consumers file suit trying to connect that broader outbreak to their own specific loss. Courts in these cases have generally required plaintiffs to show the product they personally bought and ate was actually part of the contaminated batch.

Publix faces a wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of the family of a 74-year-old Florida woman who allegedly ate E. coli-contaminated GreenWise Organic frozen blueberries sold at the company's store in Largo, Fla.: https://t.co/ry8KjWR5gH #publix #grocerynews pic.twitter.com/h8gISz1JaS

— Progressive Grocer (@pgrocer) September 25, 2026

That legal standard matters here because it shapes what comes next. The Mullins family will need to connect Karla’s specific purchase and illness to the recalled lot, not just point to the outbreak in general. Getting there usually means hospital records, lab results, and testimony from treating doctors entering the case through the discovery process.

What Comes Next in the Pinellas County Case

For now, the case sits early in the legal pipeline, with Publix and Quirch Foods named as defendants and no public court ruling yet on the merits. Discovery, depositions, and expert testimony typically follow in cases like this before any trial date gets set. Families pursuing wrongful-death claims after outbreaks often wait months, sometimes years, before a verdict settles the question of legal responsibility for good.

What’s already settled is the public health record: regulators confirmed the contamination, recalled the product, and flagged it as high-risk before Karla Mullins’s family ever filed suit. That timeline gives the case a factual backbone few food-safety lawsuits start with, even as the courtroom fight over causation and liability is only just getting underway.