When we eat, we expect that the food we consume will fuel our bodies, rather than injure them. However, as anyone who has ever experienced food poisoning can attest, this is not always the case. Sometimes, food simply does not sit well with certain digestive systems, or a person may discover a previously unknown allergy. Other times, a reaction to certain bacteria entering the body through food can be much more severe, such as in the case of salmonella. 

If you contract salmonella from food obtained at a restaurant or from packaged food at home, what are your legal rights? In this blog post, we will be examining salmonella from a legal standpoint, and helping you understand where you may, and may not, have a potential personal injury case. 

A Brief History of Salmonella

The term Salmonella refers to a family of bacteria known for more than 100 years to cause foodborne illness in humans. In 1885, a research assistant to veterinary surgeon Daniel Salmon discovered the first strain – Salmonella-Salmonella choleraesuis. Today, the number of known salmonella strains totals more than 2,300, and particular strains of Salmonella are now resistant to traditional antibiotics. Typically, none of the strains affects the taste, smell, or appearance of food.  Strains that cause no symptoms in animals can sicken people, and vice versa.

The two most common strains in the U.S. are:

1. 1) Salmonella serotype Enteritidis
2. 2) Salmonella serotype Typhimurium

Some 62% of the S. Enteritidis outbreaks occurring from 1985 through 1999 were associated with food prepared at commercial food establishments. These included restaurants, caterers, delicatessens, bakeries, cafeterias, and markets.

Outbreaks can also be caused by a manufacturer of food. The largest recorded U.S. outbreak of salmonellosis, in 1985, involved  S. Typhimurium, in milk from the Hillfarm Dairy in northern Illinois.  Nearly 17,000 cases of poisoning were confirmed, and some 200,000 more cases were suspected within six Midwest states. Ominously, many thousands of people became seriously ill by drinking one of the most closely regulated products in the U.S. food supply. Two deaths were confirmed.

Where Does Salmonella Come From?

Salmonella is an enteric bacterium, which means that it lives in the intestinal tracts of humans and other animals, including birds. Birds and their close relatives, reptiles, are known to be frequent transmitters of Salmonella bacteria to humans. Frogs and other amphibians are also known to transmit the bacteria.

The most common source of Salmonella infection in humans comes from eating foods contaminated with animal feces. The manufacturer of the food, or improper food handling during preparation, usually causes the contamination of food. Contaminated foods usually look and smell normal. Although contaminated foods are often of animal origin, all foods, including vegetables, sauces, syrups, oils, and spices, may become contaminated. Because of the known danger salmonella presents, there are numerous safety measures and regulations required to be followed during the manufacture and preparation of food.

How Does Salmonella Spread and Attack the Body?

The salmonella bacteria attacks the body stealthily; typically the human body cannot immediately detect salmonella infection. Salmonella has the uncanny abilities to hide inside intestinal-tract cells and then to disguise those cells as still-healthy cells.

As a result, the immune system’s antibodies are initially fooled. They do not fight the existing salmonella-laden cells. Salmonella does not show itself until its numbers swell by many multiples. At that point, the bacteria can typically defeat the body’s immune system. The salmonella bacterium achieves this disguise by injecting cells with proteins that mimic proteins of healthy cells. This ability was not known until 2008.

Symptoms, Treatment, and Long-Term Effects of Salmonella

The acute symptoms of Salmonella are sudden nausea, stomach cramps, bloody diarrhea with mucus, and fever.

Symptoms can start to occur as soon as a few hours after eating tainted food, but can also be delayed for as long as several days. The average incubation time for the bacteria is around 3 days.

The severity of symptoms for each infected individual will vary. The most likely to have severe symptoms are infants, the elderly, individuals already hospitalized, and the immune-suppressed.

Patients can become severely dehydrated due to diarrhea resulting from Salmonella. As a result, in some cases, an intravenous supply of fluids is necessary. From time to time, the infection has been known to spread from the intestines. When this happens, antibiotics are necessary – usually ampicillin, gentamicin, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, or ciprofloxacin. Unfortunately, because feed animals are fed antibiotics, some Salmonella bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics.

The majority of cases of salmonellosis resolve themselves in 6 days or less, without medical treatment, and cause no permanent harm. However, many cases of salmonella poisoning do not resolve until 10 days or more after symptoms arise, and require days of hospital treatment. Such serious and long-running cases of Salmonella have a notable likelihood of causing permanent damage. Our salmonella attorneys’ work with treating doctors has shown that some long-term complications can include the following:

Chronic Renal Dysfunction

Chronic renal dysfunction, or failure by kidneys to filter blood properly, is a possible complication of salmonella infection. In one study, chronic renal dysfunction was observed in 36% of patients infected by Salmonella. These included patients who recovered in a week or less and were not hospitalized.

Irritable-Bowel Syndrome

Irritable-bowel syndrome is characterized by chronic abdominal pain, bloating, and changed bowel habits. After contracting salmonellosis, a person is more than 8 times as likely to develop irritable bowel syndrome. Persons with IBS tend to miss work, to be less productive when they do work, and to have less ability to recreate.

Reiter’s Syndrome

Some victims of salmonellosis develop Reiter’s Syndrome, consisting of pains in the joints, eye irritation, and painful urination. It can last for years and can lead to chronic, untreatable arthritis.

How Can I Prevent Salmonellosis?

To prevent salmonellosis, observe the following food safety practices:

• Do not eat or serve eggs that are raw or undercooked (some recipes call for raw eggs, such as for homemade hollandaise sauce or mayonnaise or ice cream, for Caesar salad dressings, for cookie dough, and for frostings).
• Cook foods until a meat thermometer says they have reached 165 degrees Fahrenheit, the killing temperature for Salmonella.
• Do not use raw or unpasteurized milk.
• Wash or peel fruits and vegetables before eating.
• Have separate cutting boards for meat and for vegetables, and wash them often and thoroughly.
• Use separate refrigerator shelves to store your raw meats well apart from your produce, cooked foods, and ready-to-eat foods.
• Wash your hands before handling any food, and between handling different food items.
• Wash your hands after contact with animal feces or with reptiles (reptiles are frequent carriers of salmonella bacteria).
• Place all foods known to carry Salmonella in the undercarriage of your shopping cart to prevent cross-contamination.

When attempting to prove a salmonella personal injury case, know that a defendant’s insurance and legal team may posit that the food poisoning was the plaintiff’s doing alone, rather than negligence on the part of their client, the defendant. That is why we encourage you to take the steps to prevent salmonella at home first. 

How Do I Know if I Have a Food Poisoning Claim?

The first point of contact for most victims of food poisoning is their treating physician.  Following a confirmation of an infection from salmonella, individuals are often contacted by a public health official.  The mere fact that you have contracted salmonella creates a significant likelihood that you may have a food poisoning case.  

For instance, if a restaurant serves food contaminated with salmonella, you can conclude the restaurant did not prepare the food properly.  Contaminated food should never be served to a customer.  Likewise, if you eat peanut butter that is contaminated with salmonella or E.Coli, the manufacturer of the peanut butter most likely did not follow standard safety procedures to prevent contamination.

Under the law, food is treated like a product.  Contaminated food is considered a defective product.  Defective products should never be sold to the public for health and safety reasons.

While there may be a significant likelihood that you have a food poisoning case, proving it can be difficult and requires an extensive investigation.  It is imperative to determine the source of the contamination.  If the source cannot be determined you may be unable to pursue your case.  This is the equivalent of having your car stolen when the police aren’t able to catch the thief.

We recommend consulting with an experienced food poisoning lawyer if you have contracted salmonella to discuss your options and help you determine whether or not you have  a case.

What Should I Do if I Think I Have a Case?

First and foremost, focus on getting better.  Your top priority with any illness should be your health.  When you are able, record thoroughly all of the following for the days before your infection:

1. What you ate;
2. When you ate it;
3. Where you ate it; and
4. How it was prepared.

If health officials have not already contacted you, you may call them to prompt an investigation and to inquire whether other recent salmonella poisonings are reported in your geographical area.  We also recommend contacting an experienced Oregon salmonella attorney to ensure the preservation of evidence and protect your rights.

How Do You Prove the Source of Salmonella Food Poisoning?

Proving the source of the contamination is of primary importance in a food poisoning case.   Exposing the source usually involves partnerships between plaintiff’s attorneys and public-health officials, including from both local and state agencies and the federal Centers for Disease Control.  Overall, health officials can amass considerable resources in this area, as follows:

1. In a laboratory, scientists can make an examination at a molecular level to isolate the particular genetic type of salmonella that a person is infected with.
2. Through a process known as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), scientists create an electronic field that has the property of causing clumps of DNA molecules from bacteria to move and break apart.  For each bacterial strain, breaking up of a molecular clump of DNA always produces a particular patterning of individuated DNA molecules.
3. This resulting pattern of DNA molecules is unique to the DNA – the genetic identity – of the specific strain being tested.  As a result, this unique pattern can be recognized in tests of stool-sample tests from other nearby victims of salmonellosis.

However, things are more difficult if there are no additional cases that crop up in your particular geographical area with food-poisoning complaints.  This kind of case takes more investigation by the attorney. As a result, the client’s memory about what, where and how the food is prepared becomes extremely important. When the client provides a full list of such locations, this is a good starting place for an investigation.

Who Is the Typical Defendant in a Salmonella Case?

Defendants in a salmonella claim could be the manufacturer of food, a restaurant, a supermarket, or even a social host providing food to their guests.  Defendants that are in the business of selling food would be pursued under a strict-liability defective product theory – contaminated food is a defective product.  Defendants that are not in the business of selling food would be pursued using a common law negligence claim.

The experienced salmonella attorneys at Nelson MacNeil Rayfield are eager to have an opening conversation free of charge to discuss what you may need in terms of your potential salmonella case.

History of Salmonella Litigation

While these are not meant to be frightening, fear mongering exhibits, they are instances wherein the plaintiffs had reasonable cause to believe they’d been victims of salmonellosis. In these cases, having the correct evidence and ability to prove that their injury or illness was due directly to the negligence of a food service provider was key. This is important when trying to build one’s own salmonella-related personal injury case. 

Pregnant Mother, Science-Based Defense, Strong Counterargument by Plaintiff

In a recent case in Allegheny County, Pa., the plaintiff, who at the time was 7 months pregnant, claimed that eating tainted chicken-fried rice at the defendant’s restaurant caused her salmonella infection.  She claimed severe emotional distress over the thought of her infection harming her unborn child.  

The defendant had tests run on his restaurant’s leftover chicken-fried rice from the day in question, and no salmonella was found, so the defendant denied liability.  However, the plaintiff’s expert on food contamination testified that despite the negative test results, the batch of chicken-fried rice prepared that day could have been heated unevenly, allowing salmonella to exist in one part of the fried-rice buffet pan and not in others.

Kentucky Fried Chicken:  Egregious Harm, Egregious Negligence

In April 2012, after salmonella ingested from a meal at fried-chicken giant KFC infected her, 14-year-old Monika Samaan fell into a coma.  Six months later, conscious again, she discovered she could no longer walk or talk.

Jurors in this case awarded a colossally large verdict, landing at more than $8.2 million. This was not only due to the unspeakable harm Monica Samaan suffered, but also of KFC egregiously ignoring health and safety standards.  KFC has been in the food business for decades, making basically a single dish – chicken – and has had the opportunity and experience in training thousands of managers to train hundreds of thousands of employees in the safe preparation of chicken.  KFC could not hide these facts.  Jurors concluded KFC simply didn’t care enough about food safety to protect the public, and this cavalier, devil-may-care attitude on the part of a giant corporation serving millions of people angered them.

Peanut Corporation of America:  Nationwide Salmonella Outbreak, Criminal Case Filed

In 2009, the grieving son of fatally poisoned Nellie Napier pointed out a trend of widespread non-compliance with regulations to protect people against salmonella. Randy Napier was quoted as saying:

“There are other companies responsible for other outbreaks too. We need to send a message that this can’t and won’t be tolerated anymore. I don’t want to see anybody else go through what we had to go through.”

1. Typhimurium was recovered from a container of peanut butter served to Ms. Nellie Napier at a nursing home. Tests showed it was a genetic match to more than 700 illnesses nationwide linked to peanuts from Peanut Corporation of America.

Stemming from the civil suit Napier v. Kanan Enterprises noted above, a watershed criminal case is under way in summer 2014 against officials of Peanut Corporation of America, whose products, in numerous prior civil suits, were proved to have infected hundreds of people with S. Typhimurium. 

Con-Agra: Now Largest U.S. Food Producer, History of Multiple Violations

In 2010, ConAgra recalled 100% of its extant Marie Callender’s brand Cheesy Chicken and Rice frozen meals.  The federal Centers for Disease Control found 29 people in 14 states diagnosed with salmonellosis from Salmonella serotype Chester traced to ConAgra facilities.

In 2007, the CDC found 290 people in 39 states with salmonellosis traced to peanut butter produced by Con Agra.  46 hospitalizations were necessary.

Cargill: Massive Turkey Recall

In 2011, food-processing giant Cargill was forced to mount the second largest food recall in U.S. history – 36 million pounds of ground turkey – for contamination with S. Heidelberg that was linked to 136 salmonella infections, including one death, in 34 states.

Your Oregon Personal Injury Attorneys 

In the case of food poisoning, via salmonella or other pathogens, understanding your rights and where you might be able to begin with pursuing a case is crucial. Contact the experienced Oregon personal injury attorneys at Nelson MacNeil Rayfield for a free consultation to learn what you might need to prove your case, what your particular rights are, and where you should go from here.