Auto Accident Law 101

Lawsuits Involving Food Poisoning: What You Should Know

4 September 2015

Everett Cook

Did going out to dinner recently cause you to become violently ill? If so, you might be wondering if you have a case in food poisoning. The more you know about lawsuits involving food poisoning, the easier it will be to determine if you have a case.

You Need To Prove Your Claim

In order to win a food poisoning lawsuit claim you will need to be able to prove two things. The first is that the food you ate was in fact what gave you the food poisoning, and the second is that it was absolutely contaminated.

Proving that this contaminated food made you sick will be a big factor in your food poisoning cases success. The only absolute way to prove that this particular food made you sick is with a stool sample. This stool sample will be able to show that the exact disease-causing microbes that were found in the food were also traced in your stool. This is undeniable evidence that the food made you sick.

Next, you will need to prove your case of food poisoning by identifying the exact food that made you so violently sick. This is an extremely hard task and can only really be proven from hospital samples or if an entire group of people were all made sick by eating the same food. You will most often be able to acquire such proof when a health agency is called to step in and traces the cause of this group food poisoning. If this is the situation you might want to look into a class action lawsuit, or if a class action lawsuit has already been filed.

Statute Of Limitations

Unfortunately, the statute of limitations varies from state to state. You will want to record everything and begin filing as soon as possible so you do not have to worry about your state's statute of limitations. The best way to do this is by retaining a lawyer's service who specializes in personal injury law. This case will most likely be a "defective product liability claim."  Basically you are claiming that this defective product you were sold has harmed you.

Legal Theories

States have required strict product liability and negligence laws. This relieves you of having to prove that the supplier of the contaminated food product was not careful in handling or distributing this particular product. By proving this theory you can also potentially prove, negligence. Negligence will mean you must prove that this manufacture "failed to exercise reasonable care" by distributing this defective food.

As you can see, food poisoning cases are not easy to prove. You must be willing to collect a sample of your stool and try to get ahold of a sample of the food you ate that you believed made you sick. The best thing you can do in this situation is talk to a lawyer with experience in personal injury cases like Starnes  Rob P. LLC, Attorney At Law. 

Share

Search