Food Poisoning Cases:
In terms of difficulty, from easiest to hardest, we divide food poisoning cases into three categories. (We have made these categories up; they are not general legal terms.):
Category I:
A government agency, usually the federal Center for Disease Control, but it could be a state agency, has investigated a large number of people getting sick and has linked the illness outbreak to a specific food product and factory or producer. These are great cases.
Category II:
The victim can point to a specific defect in the food. (But this also makes the case more difficult: why did the victim eat the food if the victim can point to a defect in it.) The hospital has run lab tests showing a specific food poisoning organism such as salmonella. The timing between the food poisoning and onset of symptoms (the incubation period) matches the incubation period for the food poisoning organims shown in the lab tests. Here are some food poisoning organisms and typical periods of time between exposure and experiencing the symptoms:
Shigella-1-2 days
Salmonella-6-72 hours
Botulism-typically 18-36 hours
Norovirus-1-2 days
Campylobacter-2-5 days
E. Coli-typically 1 week
Hepatitus A-15-50 days
Listeria 3-70 days; average is 3 weeks
As you can see, the average person eats in a lot of different places during these incubation periods. This makes these cases difficult and almost impossible except for food poisoning involving organisms with the shortest incubation period.
Category III:
In some states you can sue for food poisoning even if you cannot point to a specific defect in the food. One of us (Jonathan Reed) won an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court on this point. There have been similar cases in some other states. However, from a practical point these cases are not worthwhile with rare exceptions.
Contact Information:
Mail
Reed & Mansfield
6655 West Sahara Avenue, Suite B-200
Las Vegas, Nevada 89146
Phone
(702) 343-0494
regular business hours: 9am-5pm (Pacific Coast time) M-F
most days: We will also take your call between
7am-9pm including weekends and holidays
E-mail
lawlv@cox.net
Website Home Page
http://www.accidentawardslasvegas.com