Conagra ordered to pay $25 million in lawsuit alleging Pam cooking spray caused lung disease

A jury awarded a Los Angeles man $25 million in a lawsuit against Chicago-based Conagra alleging its butter-flavored Pam cooking spray caused a rare chronic lung disease that will require a double lung transplant. 

The verdict last week in the Superior Court of Los Angeles found that Conagra did not adequately warn consumers about the potential dangers of inhaling fumes from Pam cooking spray containing diacetyl, a butter-flavored chemical linked to respiratory illness. 

During the trial, Conagra said it removed the ingredient from its Pam formulation in 2009. 

Roland Esparza, 58, who had used butter-flavored Pam regularly since the 1990s, filed the lawsuit in 2022, alleging the since-discontinued ingredient is responsible for his condition, according to his Chicago-based attorney. 

“He was a big health nut, bodybuilder, martial artist,” his attorney, Jacob Plattenberger, said Tuesday. “He was eating a lot of protein, eating a lot of eggs, and he cooked everything on his stove top. And so he was using it multiple times a day.”

Esparza was diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans, a severe and progressive respiratory disease better known as “popcorn lung.” The disease was first identified in workers at a microwave popcorn plant who inhaled the butter-flavored chemical diacetyl during the manufacturing process. 

While there have been several successful consumer cases brought against microwave popcorn manufacturers, this is the first popcorn lung verdict against a cooking spray manufacturer, Plattenberger said. 

Conagra intends to challenge the potentially precedent-setting $25 million award. 

“We disagree with and are disappointed with the jury’s verdict,” Conagra said in a statement Tuesday. “PAM Butter Flavor cooking spray is safe and has been diacetyl-free for nearly two decades. We intend to pursue all available legal avenues to contest the verdict.” 

The use of diacetyl as a butter flavoring came under greater scrutiny in the new millennium after workers at several Midwest popcorn plants became ill. In 2004, Eric Peoples, who worked in a Missouri plant, won a $20 million judgment against the makers of the butter-flavored chemical he alleged caused his lung disease. 

In 2012, Wayne Watson of Colorado, a microwave popcorn consumer, was awarded $7 million in a lawsuit against manufacturer Gilster-Mary Lee Corp. and several retailers after alleging he developed popcorn lung from years of inhaling the buttery chemical.

Diacetyl’s use has been curtailed in many products, but the American Lung Association warns the chemical and substitutes may be present in e-cigarettes, potentially a vector for connecting vaping and popcorn lung. 

Created by Chicago ad executive Arthur Meyerhoff, Pam nonstick cooking spray became a kitchen staple in the 1960s. 

Conagra acquired Pam as part of its $2.9 billion purchase of International Home Foods in 2000.

In 2019, Conagra was hit with a flurry of lawsuits alleging that cans of Pam cooking spray burst into flames, severely burning users. In 2023, an Illinois jury ordered Conagra to pay $7.1 million to a Pennsylvania woman who was burned in a 2017 kitchen fire ignited by a can of Pam. 

Now Conagra has been ordered to pay Esparza $25 million after years of inadvertently inhaling diacetyl from the previous formulation of butter-flavored Pam. Esparza is hoping to make the list for a lung transplant “soon,” but time may be running out, Plattenberger said. 

“We feel that it was a correct verdict,” Plattenberger said. “Our client’s a really good guy who didn’t do anything wrong and got a raw deal, and hopefully this helps. Nothing will give him his health back, and even if he gets the transplant, it’s not a great life, but it will give him a few more years.”

rchannick@chicagotribune.com