If you find yourself feeling extremely ill after eating out at a restaurant, you may be wondering if you can sue for financial compensation. Severe food poisoning often requires hospitalization, and mild food poisoning can require time off work.
People have come into our office to ask if they can hire a personal injury lawyer for food poisoning cases, and the answer is mixed. Personal injury lawsuits require time and effort, and most attorneys will only take on cases where they feel like the settlement has a good chance of compensating both the lawyer and the plaintiff for their time and effort.
With any lawsuit, ample evidence must be provided to prove that the defendant caused the plaintiff harm in some way, and it’s often difficult to prove that the food poisoning was directly caused by the restaurant. First of all, most people eat multiple meals a day, so you must prove that it was that meal specifically that caused your illness. In this situation, having leftovers from the restaurant in your fridge can sometimes help, but the defense will try to say that the food is contaminated due to incorrect storage.
Proving that your food poisoning is from a restaurant is always helpful if there are other injured parties or if the restaurant’s food supplier recently had an outbreak.
Another factor that must be considered is the fact that a personal injury lawsuit is based on damages. Most bouts of food poisoning put most people off their feet for only two or so days, so your damages aren’t likely to be high enough for you to have a case for compensation.
In the most serious of cases, the restaurant’s contaminated food would give you listeria, salmonella, or some other foodborne illness. This would then put you out of work and in the hospital.
It’s important to understand that most accident injury lawyers won’t take cases where only a few thousand dollars are at stake. In most situations where a restaurant gives you food poisoning, it’s probably best to call the restaurant and ask for a refund or a gift card to compensate you.
