Patients newly recognized as victims of a 1968 mass food poisoning across western Japan filed a damages suit Friday against the manufacturer of contaminated cooking oil, Kanemi Soko KK, demanding that the company and its two officials pay 286 million yen. The suit, filed by 26 plaintiffs with the Kokura Branch of the Fukuoka District Court, was the first collective lawsuit since a legal struggle to seek compensation concluded in 1987. Many of the plaintiffs were recognized as victims of the food poisoning, caused by cooking oil contaminated by polychlorinated biphenyl and dioxin, under new diagnostic criteria introduced in 2004. The concentration of PCB and dioxin in blood began to be counted in the year. The plaintiffs, who are from Nagasaki, Hiroshima and five other prefectures, took legal action against Kanemi Soko, its president and one other official after the company rejected their compensation requests.