March 1, 2021
Posted by: OFT Food Safety & Injury Lawyers
Yes, you can sue for Salmonella food poisoning if there is evidence that your illness was caused by eating contaminated food that you bought at a store or were served at a restaurant.
If you or a loved one has been sick from Salmonella, please call OFT Food Safety & Injury Lawyers at (888) 828-0787 for a free consultation—we would be happy to discuss whether filing a Salmonella lawsuit makes sense for you.
It is not always necessary to file a lawsuit. When our Salmonella lawyers represent people who were sickened with salmonellosis, we will investigate the case, notify the producer and/or retailer of the claim, and make a demand for compensation.
Many times, we represent multiple people—even dozens—who were sickened by the same contaminated food in the same Salmonella outbreak. That means we have the leverage to get the attention of the bad actor that sold or produced the contaminated food, and there is often an opportunity to reach an agreement on fair compensation without actually filing a lawsuit.
Oftentimes a lawsuit is necessary or desirable. Sometimes the bad actor is unwilling to acknowledge its wrongdoing or come to the table. The deadline for filing a lawsuit (called the Statute of Limitations, which varies by state) may be impending. And sometimes there are tactical or strategic reasons for filing the Salmonella lawsuit.
Some of these reasons may include:
After a lawsuit is filed, we gain access to information gathering tools supervised and enforced by the court. This is called “discovery.”
This includes the power to ask written questions of the opposing parties, to request that they produce specific documents, and to make their employees and agents sit for depositions and answer questions in person.
Sometimes we can obtain damning evidence through this process that strengthens a claim for damages, or even lays the groundwork for a claim of punitive damages.
Sometimes a bad actor simply will not engage until a lawsuit is filed. They may be waiting for the Statute of Limitations to run out, or they may be unwilling to take the matter seriously without the gravity of an actual lawsuit. In these kinds of cases, filing a lawsuit can sometimes speed up the process of obtaining fair compensation for your pain and suffering, medical bills, and other damages.
If your case is part of a large outbreak, and many other people have been sickened, there may be only so much money available to pay for the damages of all the victims.
Typically, a food producer has insurance to cover the damages claimed, but all insurance policies have limits. While we are usually able to find other sources of compensation even after an initial insurance policy has been exhausted, in rare cases a company may go bankrupt before it can pay out fair compensation to everyone.
Unfortunately, far too many food producers treat people getting sick from eating their food as a cost of doing business. They insure for it, and they consider a cost of doing business. We think that is unacceptable, which is why we try to obtain the maximum possible compensation for our clients. Ultimately, we want to make the cost of making people sick too high to be considered just a cost of doing business, so that it stops happening.
Among other things, filing a lawsuit can create unfavorable media attention for the food producer that made people sick. This media attention can also raise awareness for others who were sickened in the same outbreak, increasing the chance that they seek compensation. The more people that seek compensation, the more likely it is that a food producer will actually change its ways enough to prevent the next outbreak. This can be particularly important for people whose initial illness may have subsided but are still suffering from long-term complications such as reactive arthritis.
If you have a valid claim, and you are running out of time under the Statute of Limitations, then you should definitely work with our attorneys to get a lawsuit filed. But we usually have time to consider all the options, and the decision of whether or not to file the lawsuit depends on the particular circumstances of every individual case. To discuss whether filing a lawsuit makes sense in your case, please contact us for a completely free consultation.
Call OFT Food Safety & Injury Lawyers at (888) 828-0787 or use our online contact form.
