A Westchester man’s tuna pig-out could help Bumble Bee Foods get off the hook over claims it gave him mercury poisoning.
The seafood-processing company charges in court papers that Lee Porrazzo of White Plains “abnormally overconsumed” its canned catch.
Bumble Bee notes that Porrazzo’s suit “alleges that he consumed approximately 538 pounds of canned tuna or approximately 1,434 6-ounce cans of tuna within 33 months.”
“Consuming this inordinate amount of tuna constitutes . . . overconsumption and would be deemed an unanticipated overuse of the product,” the White Plains federal court filing says.
Bumble Bee also says Porrazzo should have known that all fish contain “trace amounts of mercury” and that “mercury is inherent to canned tuna.”
“Defendants did not put [it] in, and defendants can not take it out,” the court papers say.
Porrazzo claims that he ate tuna nearly every day, thinking it was “the cleanest source of protein.”