More than 50 middle school students in Oregon were fed pretzels that were seasoned with crushed oven cleaner last fall, according to a newly filed lawsuit.
About 37 pretzels coated with Alto-Cham concentrated oven cleaner — an industrial-strength caustic chemical made with sodium hydroxide — were served during sixth-grade lunch at Fowler Middle School in Tigard, a suburb of Portland, on October 20, 2025, according to a nearly $1 million lawsuit filed last month.
More than 50 students ate all or part of the impacted pretzels, according to Tigard-Tualatin School District records obtained by Fox 12.
That’s starting to look like personal liability for a few people.
I don’t think you can get personal liability for the principal and there’s no way that the kitchen worker could pay a million dollars. So basically the school district is going to be footing the bill.
It would be interesting to see if any criminal charges could go to the kitchen worker. Accidentally poisoning people is a pretty terrible thing to do. Of course it depends on the precise wording of state law.
There’s more to it than that. One of the first things a food safety inspector looks at is whether chemicals are stored separately from food, precisely so this kind of accident can’t happen. This kitchen left a caustic chemical in the food prep area, where it got used. Had they been following proper protocols, that wouldn’t have happened.
They had to violate specific standards for this to occur. They are screwed.
You can win damages against both.
That’s what the insurance company is for in the schools case. The kitchen worker and the principal not so much.