Lawsuits & Judgments

The Ontario based law firm of Flaherty Dow Elliott & McCarthy, has launched a $10 million class action lawsuit against the Longhorn Bodyart Studio, an Oshawa ( Ontario, Canada) based body art  parlor.

The suit  alleges that a faulty equipment exposed more than  2000 customers who got tattoos or piercings at the shop  to blood borne diereses including HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.  The shop had faulty sterilization equipment which malfunctioned periodically during the period November 2006 and August 2007. As result the staff at longhorn could have been using dirty or infected equipment on otherwise health customers.

So far more than 500 customers have had blood tests according to an article in  The Star and none have tested positive for infection. The problem with these  types of infections is that they may not manifest for months. Several of the customers interviewed by The Star reported, understandably, being deeply concerned about the potential for infection manifesting coming months.

At Lawsuits & Judgments we can’t help but wonder if this suit might expand to the manufacturer of the sterilization apparatus. If it was a fault in the equipment itself, and not in the operation by that one particular customer, than there are probably a number of medical or body art establishments at risk for a similar failure.  We will monitor developments in this case

Most importantly if you were a customer of Longhorn Bodyart Studio since last November, get a blood test and take all the usual precautions (including no sharing needles, safe sex)  against infecting others.