A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of 74 people who suffered from a severe gastrointestinal illness after eating at a Lombard restaurant last year.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in DuPage County Circuit Court against Neel Subway Inc. at 1009 E. Roosevelt Road. The suit alleges that during a period from Feb. 23 to March 1, 2010, there were 328 cases of shigellosis infection, an intestinal disease caused by a family of bacteria known as shigella, that stemmed from the Subway restaurant.

The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, was filed by attorney Gary Newland of the firm of Newland & Newland LLP of  Arlington Heights in co-counsel with Marler Clark of The Food Safety Law Firm in Seattle, Wash.

The lawsuit alleges that an investigation by the DuPage County Health Department and the Illinois Department of Public Health showed that two of the restaurant’s employees tested positive for the same strand of shigella that caused the outbreak and that those two individuals had been ill with gastrointestinal symptoms prior to the outbreak.

The lawsuit states that “poor hygienic practices by these employees, and generally at the defendant’s Subway restaurant caused widespread contamination of patrons’ food.”

The people represented in the lawsuit suffered “significant physical injury and economic loss,” according to the complaint.

“A lot of people missed a lot of work and school. Some were hospitalized,” said Newland.

He added that the illness can have long-lasting ill effects on people’s health.

“Shigella is salmonella on steroids,” he said. “It’s very, very powerful.”

In addition to financial compensation, Newland said the lawsuit is intended to instill better health practices.

“There are (health) practices that you are supposed to follow,” he said.

The suit filed Monday is the fourth suit that the firm has filed on behalf of some of the people who became ill after eating at the restaurant. The other lawsuits were for just one or two people at a time and are still pending,  Newland said.

“The cases were coming in and we decided to wait to do a bulk filing,” Newland said.

A call to the restaurant for comment on the lawsuit was not immediately returned Monday.