How Do You Determine Liability for Food Poisoning?

Food poisoning can be an uncomfortable situation at best, no matter who you are. The feelings of nausea, exhaustion, and other symptoms can easily put you out of commission for several days. Depending on the bacteria that caused your food poisoning, you may even be at risk for further health complications.

With so many potential sources of food poisoning, it’s possible that any number of foods can cause your illness. When that food comes from a restaurant, you do have a legal right to pursue compensation. However, it can be difficult to prove liability in such cases, which can cause complications if you wish to make a successful claim.

Sometimes, symptoms of food poisoning start to appear shortly after eating contaminated food. In others, there can be a delay of several hours between the meal and any resulting illness. While you may suspect that your meal at a restaurant is the source of your food poisoning, it can just as easily be from something else you ate, or even another illness like the stomach flu.

One of the first things you can do to establish liability for your case is to visit a doctor to confirm that you do have food poisoning, and not some other illness. Having a medical record will confirm your symptoms and give you a solid foundation for your claim. You are not required to be hospitalized in order to have a valid claim.

From there, you will need to establish the negligence that led to your illness. When building cases against restaurants, this usually works by proving that the restaurant did not follow safety standards in storing, preparing, and serving food. You will then need to make a connection between that negligence and the food you ate, which then resulted in your illness.

Proving that the restaurant’s food was the cause of your food poisoning is often one of the most challenging aspects. One method you can use is to take any leftovers you have of your meal in for lab testing. While this may reveal bacteria in your food, however, it is likely that the restaurant may counter that the bacteria growth happened because you failed to properly preserve it, after leaving the restaurant.

You can have a much better chance of proving liability if several people become affected by food poisoning by the same source. This can involve several people becoming ill after sharing food at a restaurant, or product recalls on infected food products. For such cases, proving liability involves showing that known contaminated products were in use at the restaurant you visited.

Because of the complications in proving liability for food poisoning, it may not be worth the effort to pursue a lawsuit. Unless your illness was serious, your total damages may not bring you any worthwhile compensation for the time and money spent on pursuing a legal claim.

However, food poisoning cases that involve E. coli, salmonella, and other dangerous bacteria can cause greater health complications, and can have higher damage rewards for affected parties. Children and the elderly are also at greater risk when exposed to food poisoning, so such cases may also be more justified.

When in doubt, you can always contact a Houston personal injury attorney to learn about your options. And if you choose to sue the restaurant that caused your food poisoning, we can help you prove liability and pursue your rightful compensation.

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