Two men sickened in the 2011 cantaloupe listeria outbreak have died, two years after the national scare was linked to melons grown on a Colorado farm.

Herb Stevens and Charles Palmer died in the past four days, the men's attorney, Bill Marler, said.

At the time of Stevens' death, Marler was returning from a meeting with lawyers and insurance companies representing the broker, shipper and grocery store chain that sold the contaminated melons, as well as the auditor who gave the farm an outstanding rating while it was shipping the listeria-covered cantaloupes.

"If I were a cynic, you could look at the justice delayed and see that the strategy of the corporations that sell you 'fresh fruit' is to stretch the process out until all the victims are dead," Marler wrote on his blog. "If I were a cynic."

Stevens' wife and four daughters, along with dozens of other victims' families, will be the beneficiaries if the companies settle lawsuits stemming from the outbreak. The Littleton man ate part of a cut-up cantaloupe his wife bought at a grocery store in August 2011. Within two weeks, he had tremors and chills and was so weak that he couldn't stand.


Stevens, 86, never rebounded after he was sickened by the cantaloupe, and his family attributes his decreased quality of life the last two years to the food poisoning.

Palmer of Colorado Springs had hoped to resolve his lawsuit against the cantaloupe shipper, farm inspector and grocery store before his death. He had $250,000 in medical bills and didn't want to leave that burden on his wife and two sons, ages 18 and 20.

Palmer, a retired master Marine sergeant, was 70 when he was sickened by listeria bacteria, and until then, his family says, his health was clean. His symptoms began with a severe headache and stiff neck, and worsened to the point his eyes were rolling back and he was not responding to his wife, who called 911.

As he was treated for listeria, doctors discovered cancer.

Officially, the outbreak is linked to 33 deaths and one miscarriage by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.