Salmonella Lawyer

Salmonella is one of the most common causes of food poisoning in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that each year an estimated 1.2 million cases of illness are due to Salmonella. When this contamination is a result of somebody’s negligence, victims may be able to hold the restaurants, distributors, or manufacturers who were involved accountable. If you or a loved one has suffered from food poisoning, then you’re in need of a qualified Salmonella lawyer who will advocate on your behalf and assess your Salmonella lawsuit diligently. Contact our experienced Salmonella Lawyers at The Lange Law Firm, PLLC for a free consultation today.

If you or a loved one has suffered from Salmonella food poisoning, then you’re in need of a qualified Salmonella lawyer who will advocate on your behalf and assess your case diligently. At The Lange Law Firm, PLLC, our Salmonella Lawyers have helped thousands of people affected by Salmonellosis and other foodborne illnesses throughout the United States. Our firm focuses solely on food safety law; it’s the only thing we do. To schedule a free consultation with our Salmonella attorneys, please, call or fill out a contact form today. Our experienced Salmonella attorneys will help you understand your options and help you hold those responsible accountable. We represent clients in all 50 US states and can help no matter where you are located.

How Can a Salmonella Lawyer Help?

Pursuing a claim for damages in a foodborne illness case requires demonstrating:

• Contamination of the product with Salmonella bacteria
• Consumption of a contaminated product
• Salmonella poisoning due to the exposure, which causes measurable damages

An experienced Salmonella attorney assists with building proof of each of these three pillars of your case. At The Lange Law Firm, PLLC, our team:

• Works with you to obtain medical and scientific proof, including lab results from a stool culture confirming infection with Salmonella bacteria and DNA fingerprinting to match your strain of Salmonella to a specific food item or known outbreak.
• Helps you establish proof of purchase, including receipts, grocery loyalty card records, remaining food packaging with lot numbers, or lab testing of leftover products
• Works with you to identify who was to blame, including product manufacturers, distributors, or resellers under legal doctrines including negligence and strict liability.
• Assists in proving damage, including obtaining medical bills, hospital records, and proof of missed work time.

Causation (or proving the cause of exposure) is one of the biggest challenges in foodborne illness claims. As soon as you become sick with Salmonella, you need an attorney who understands how to investigate the contamination source and take swift action

Why Choose The Lange Law Firm PLLC’s Salmonella Lawyer?

Salmonella cases are highly technical claims. Demonstrating the cause of your foodborne illness is critical to recovering compensation, and both scientific evidence and medical proof are required.

Because of the challenges involved in identifying the cause of your illness, it’s critical to work with an attorney who has a deep understanding of the traceback process to identify the origins of the exposure. You will find that attorney at The Lange Law Firm. You should place your trust in our firm because:

• We are not injury attorneys; we are foodborne illness lawyers. Our firm is built around foodborne illness investigations, and these types of claims are the only ones we handle. We routinely monitor outbreaks nationwide and have a deep understanding of how the CDC investigates claims. We can gather the evidence you need to prove your exposure source.
• Jory Lange is nationally recognized as one of the nation’s leading food poisoning lawyers. Lange has spent 20+ years representing clients in foodborne illness cases. Lange has been recognized by major professional organizations like the National Trial Lawyers Association, Super Lawyers, and the National Trial Lawyers Top 100. He also has an AV Preeminent peer rating.
• We have represented clients in science-intensive foodborne illness investigations nationwide. Jory Lange has served as lead counsel in complex cases involving Salmonella outbreaks and other foodborne illnesses across the United States. He is skilled at presenting scientific evidence in ways the jury can understand and has a deep knowledge of how to litigate highly technical claims.
• Jory Lange is the lawyer other firms turn to. When other firms are faced with difficult cases, Lange is the attorney they turn to. This peer endorsement shows that skilled legal professionals trust Jory’s credentials and know that The Lange Law Firm will go the distance in fighting for clients, instead of just looking for a quick settlement.
• Hands-on attention. Although Lange has helped hundreds of clients nationwide, Jory is still committed to providing the personalized attention every client deserves when facing a serious illness or the loss of a loved one.

Our Case Results

• $7M recovered on behalf of four people who were injured or died from consuming a contaminated food product.
• $2.7M Record-Setting Settlement for the family of a person who died from consuming a contaminated food product
• $2M For the family of a person who died from consuming a contaminated food product

The Lange Firm represented over 43 clients in lawsuits against Boston restaurant Los Amigos after a Salmonella outbreak in 2023.

“Candess & Jory were extremely valuable resources for me when I contracted food poisoning. They guided me through every step of the legal process from start to finish.”

Who May Be Held Liable For Your Salmonella Poisoning?

Because Salmonella can be introduced into the food supply at any stage, liability can extend to any company that caused or contributed to your exposure. Some examples of potential defendants who have been held liable for Salmonella poisoning in the past include:

• Food manufacturers that process or produce contaminated food: In one instance, more than 700 cases of Salmonella were linked to contamination of peanut products at a food factory in Georgia operated by the Peanut Corporation of America.
• Livestock, poultry, or egg producers: For example, Midwest Poultry Services has a massive recall due to a Salmonella outbreak, after over 100 people became sick.
• Food importers who import contaminated products: One example is imported moringa leaf powder from India, which was recalled due to an investigation of a Salmonella outbreak.
• Retail stores that sell contaminated food: Jewel Grocery store was one of many grocery stores sued as a result of exposure to Salmonella, with the store’s deli counter cited as the source of the contamination.
• Restaurants or other facilities that prepare or sell contaminated food: Many local and national restaurants have been sued when Salmonella exposure was linked to food they sold, including a restaurant and pie shop in Kentucky, and a Mediterranean restaurant in California.

Other companies along the supply chain may be liable as well, such as companies that provide contaminated packaging, or food distributors and wholesalers.

The key is to demonstrate that the defendant failed in some obligation, such as a duty to produce, sell, or distribute safe food products, to maintain a sanitary environment, or to conduct appropriate testing for pathogens.

What Evidence Do You Need to Preserve to Prove Your Salmonella Case?

Collecting evidence in the days after your illness begins is important to successfully prove a Salmonella claim. Foodborne illness cases depend heavily on supply chain tracing, as well as on epidemiology and microbiology, so acting quickly is critical before evidence is lost.

Some of the key types of evidence you will need include:

• A stool culture or culture-independent diagnostic test (CIDT). The bacteria from your sample can be compared with Salmonella recovered from food products or manufacturing facilities using whole-genome sequencing. This can identify the source of your exposure with a high degree of accuracy.
• Any available evidence from public health laboratories, including serotyping to determine the strain of Salmonella, as well as DNA fingerprinting and genomic comparison to identify isolates that are genetically related and identify the source of outbreaks.
• Remaining food you believe resulted in your exposure: If you have even small amounts of remaining food available, this can be tested in a lab. Place the food in a sealed container or bag, avoid unnecessary handling, keep items in their original packaging when possible, and refrigerate or freeze the food to preserve it.
• Packaging and product information: If you have the original packaging of the items you believe made you sick, you should preserve it. Packaging can include critical information linking the food you consume to an outbreak, including lot and batch numbers, UPC barcodes, and manufacturing information.
• Proof of purchase: This helps to provide proof of exposure. Grocery receipts, debit and credit card statements, delivery app receipts, and online grocery orders can all be used to show you purchased a contaminated item.
• Information on others in your family or area who became sick. Document all other parties who may have been potentially exposed, as this can help to strengthen your claim and further an investigation into the cause of your exposure.
• Records of medical bills and other financial losses. You also have to prove damages as well as exposure, so keep records of bills you incurred and work you missed.

Public health laboratories use a traceback process to identify where the contaminated food was introduced into the supply chain. This can include interviewing victims, reviewing shipping records and manufacturer records, environmental sampling, recall information, and more.

The Lange Law Firm, PLLC understands how these investigators operate, monitors ongoing investigations from public health officials, and assists clients in gathering the evidence they need to prove their claim.

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

To determine if you have a Salmonella food poisoning claim:

• Determine if you have a confirmed Salmonella diagnosis. You will need lab reports from a stool culture or other testing that shows the presence of Salmonella bacteria.
• See if you can trace your exposure to a particular food. Check recall status, contact local public health officials, review everything you ate in the past several days, and consult with others in your family or in your area to try to determine the source of the exposure.
• Calculate any financial or personal losses: Your exposure and resulting illness must have caused you harm that you can recover compensation for. If you incurred medical care costs, missed work, suffered pain and discomfort, or experienced other direct damages due to Salmonella exposure, you likely have a claim.

Salmonella food poisoning claims are highly technical claims, so it’s best to reach out to a Salmonella lawyer at The Lange Law Firm, PLLC. Because we are continually monitoring outbreaks and understand how to build strong claims, we can help you understand your rights.

Legal Grounds for a Salmonella Food Poisoning Lawsuit

In order to pursue a damage claim, you must have legal grounds. This means you must demonstrate that those responsible for your exposure breached a legal obligation or violated a rule or regulation in a way that caused you harm.

There are multiple potential legal arguments you can make when you pursue your claim. In Texas, for example, Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code Chapter 82 governs product liability claims and explains that 

“Products liability action’ means any action against a manufacturer or seller for recovery of damages arising out of personal injury, death, or property damage allegedly caused by a defective product whether the action is based in strict tort liability, strict products liability, negligence, misrepresentation, breach of express or implied warranty, or any other theory or combination of theories.”

Other states have similar rules and give plaintiffs multiple grounds to hold negligent companies accountable for releasing or providing dangerous products — including unsafe food items contaminated by Salmonella.

Strict Liability

Claims arising from strict liability do not require you to prove negligence.

As the USDA explains, in foodborne illness claims, the plaintiff must prove that the “product was defective and unreasonably dangerous when it left the manufacturer’s control and that this defect proximately caused the injury.”

A contaminated food item carrying Salmonella bacteria is inherently dangerous, so proving causation is the key to success in your claim. The plaintiff must be able to show their specific illness resulted from the defective food product.

Negligence

Negligence is another common legal argument in product liability claims. According to the USDA, a plaintiff in these cases must show the defendant failed to “exercise ‘reasonable care’ in producing, marketing, or selling the implicated food, and because of this failure, someone became ill.

The three key elements of these claims include demonstrating that :

• The defendant had a duty to the victims
• The defendant failed to fulfill the duty
• The plaintiff’s illness occurred as a direct result of the failure

Distributors, warehousers, and manufacturers have all been found liable for foodborne illness claims due to their negligent failure to ensure that food remained free from dangerous bacteria.

Breach of Express or Implied Warranty

Finally, the USDA explains that other common grounds for a claim based on Salmonella exposure include breach of express or implied warranty. This means the food did not conform to an express or implied promise, and victims were made sick as a result.

A plaintiff could prove a breach of express warranty if sales statements or writing on the food product expressly claimed that the products were free of Salmonella, while breach of an implied warranty can occur if the food that was sold did not conform to their reasonable expectation that the items they were purchasing was fit for consumption.

Helping Victims Nationwide

Our office is located in Houston, Texas, but we help people throughout the United States with their Salmonella food poisoning cases. Because foodborne illness outbreaks often affect people across multiple states, our team is equipped to investigate and handle cases nationwide. Whether your illness was linked to a nationwide Salmonella recall, a restaurant, or a grocery store, we can investigate your claim and guide you through every step of the legal process. Most of the legal process can be handled remotely by phone, email, and video conferencing, so you can get experienced legal representation without the need to travel, making it easy to get experienced legal representation wherever you are in the United States.

We have represented Salmonella victims from across the country in cases involving contaminated food, nationwide recalls, multistate outbreaks, and even local food contamination events. Below are just a few examples of the communities and states where we have helped families pursue justice:

• A Salmonella outbreak at a local Boston restaurant
• Clients in 14 states who were affected by the Cucumber Salmonella Outbreak in 2024
• Salmonella found in Red Onions in 2020
• Salmonella found in pre-cut melons in 2019
• Mixed fruit Salmonella outbreak in Pennsylvania and Minnesota
• Local grocery store in Chicago faces Salmonella in the Carnitas

What Potential Compensation Can I Recover in My Salmonella Case?

When you pursue a Salmonella case, you can recover compensation. You should be paid for both economic and non-financial damages, which are the compensable losses that you experience.

Economic Damages

Economic damages are the most common type of compensation awarded, and are available in all successful Salmonella claims. They are meant to compensate for verifiable monetary losses. Those can include:

• Medical expenses: based on past, present, and future medical needs, the goal being to enable you to live as normal of a life as possible. Salmonella victims often require rehydration via IV fluids, as well as antibiotics and antidiarrheal drugs. Some patients are hospitalized, especially if symptoms are severe. And if the infection enters your bloodstream, you may require intensive hospital treatment that takes weeks or months.
• Lost wages and loss of earning capacity: While the most severe symptoms typically last one to seven days, some patients will experience ongoing diarrhea for 10 or more days. The CDC also warns that it can take months for your bowels to normalize. Missing work during this time is common and you should be compensated for it. If your resulting injuries are so severe that they prevent you from working in the future or reduce your earning power, damages may also be recovered for your lost earning capacity.
• Burial and funeral costs: in cases of wrongful death. Surviving family members may be able to recover these expenses in a wrongful death claim. While many people do recover from Salmonella, according to the CDC, an estimated 500 people die from Salmonellosis each year in the United States.

If you have suffered any of these economic damages, or any other calculable losses, you have the right to recover their value in full. States do not have caps on actual losses.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages are subjective, non-monetary losses. Their value is much more difficult to calculate, as they are based on the individual’s extent of loss. That means it will vary on a case-by-case basis. Some examples of non-economic damages that may be secured in a salmonella lawsuit include:

• Pain and suffering: based on the level of physical pain that you suffered or continue to endure, along with any loss of quality of life. Salmonella can cause sharp abdominal cramps as well as gastrointestinal burning. Victims may experience severe headaches, as well as muscle and body aches, and can develop long-term complications including a painful condition called reactive arthritis joint pain. Defendants should provide compensation for all the discomfort resulting from the illness.
• Emotional Distress: the degree of severity of emotional distress varies by each case, and can include anxiety, depression, insomnia, fear, humiliation, etc. testimony from a mental health professional will often be required.
• Loss of consortium: refers to the impact of your illness on your relationship with your spouse. Specifically, the loss of companionship. Some jurisdictions will also allow the impact on a parent and child relationship to be considered.
• Disability or Disfigurement: in some cases, Salmonella can cause joint pain and reactive arthritis that can last for months or even years. Potentially serious or life-threatening infections can also occur if Salmonella enters the bloodstream.
• Loss of enjoyment of life: if your salmonellosis has kept you from enjoying activities that you were able to engage in prior to becoming ill.

Client Experience

“The Lange Law Firm does an amazing job – No one will work harder for you! A great dream team that is ready to tackle any challenge and always put their clients first. Fabulous experience working with Candess and Mr. Lange!”

Lauren Teare

Google Review

Recent Salmonella Outbreaks and Recalls

The following table highlights some of the largest multistate Salmonella outbreaks investigated by the CDC in recent years. These outbreaks often result in nationwide recalls and hundreds of reported illnesses. However, most Salmonella cases occur outside of these multistate outbreaks. Many outbreaks are limited to a single state or community and involve contaminated food served by local restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets, or other businesses. Although these smaller outbreaks may never receive national media coverage, victims can still have valid legal claims against the responsible parties.

The Lange Law Firm has represented victims of nationwide recalls, but we also have unparalleled experience in these smaller claims. We know how to run investigations and gather evidence when the CDC doesn’t do the hard work for you, and we will put together the strongest possible case to get you justice.
You can read on to learn about some of the recent nationwide recalls related to Salmonella, or give us a call if you or someone you love was affected to find out how we can help you.

Further analysis of CDC outbreak data reveals more insight into Salmonella outbreaks.

From 2009-2023, the CDC collected data on 3,123 outbreaks of Salmonella, leading to 11,875 hospitalizations and 108 deaths.

Which States Do Salmonella Outbreaks Occur Most Often?

1. New York – 436
2. Pennsylvania – 436
3. California – 416
4. Illinois – 378
5. Ohio – 363
6. Texas – 356
7. Massachusetts – 325
8. Minnesota – 324
9. Virginia – 288
10. Michigan – 265
11. Wisconsin – 260
12. Tennessee – 256
13. North Carolina – 251
14. Washington – 249
15. Colorado – 240
16. Georgia – 239
17. New Jersey – 237
18. Florida – 233
19. Maryland – 229
20. South Carolina – 229
21. Arizona – 225
22. Oregon – 223
23. Indiana – 220
24. Kentucky – 216
25. Missouri – 203

$7 Million recovered on behalf of four people who were injured or died from consuming a contaminated food product.

Contact a Skilled Salmonella Lawyer Today

Have you or a loved one suffered from salmonella poisoning after falling prey to unsafe food practices? If so, our experienced Salmonella lawyer at The Lange Law Firm, PLLC is eager to help. Speak to a Salmonella lawyer today and receive a free case evaluation to see if you have a Salmonella lawsuit.