Las Vegas Food Poisoning Lawyer
If you are visiting Las Vegas or live in Nevada and plan to visit the Strip, there is a dizzying number of choices available when it comes to places to eat. Las Vegas has thousands of restaurants, and each casino and hotel contains restaurants and buffets. The service industry is crucial to the local economy, and many residents enjoy eating out on their nights off. Given this astronomical number of choice in eateries, it’s important to know what to do in case you experience food poisoning in Las Vegas. If you believe a local eatery’s food caused your food poisoning, contact the Las Vegas food poisoning lawyers at Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP.
Can I File a Lawsuit for Food Poisoning?
Restaurants, buffets, and other establishments that serve food have a legal obligation to ensure that they do not serve contaminated or spoiled food to patrons. When they fail in this obligation and food poisoning results, they stand to absorb liability for affected patrons’ medical expenses and other damages. While this places a large burden on food service establishments, the reality is that proving food poisoning is quite difficult because of how food poisoning affects the body, a Las Vegas food poisoning attorney can help you prove your case.
A person who suffers food poisoning may initially assume it happened from the last thing he or she ate, but this isn’t always the case. Some types of food poisoning may not manifest until several hours or a day after consuming contaminated food. If you wake up with food poisoning, you might assume last night’s dinner caused it, when it was actually yesterday’s lunch.
Who is Liable in a Food Poisoning Case?
For a person with food poisoning, proving the origin of the poisoning is often the most difficult part of a lawsuit. Some things may make this easier, such as a government agency tracing compromised food to a restaurant or other establishment where you recently ate. Additionally, if you ate at a buffet or restaurant where multiple guests all ate the same thing and got sick, this will strengthen your case and help prove the origin of your food poisoning. In some cases, these situations will evolve into class-action lawsuits if many people suffered damages from the same cause.
Damages in Food Poisoning Lawsuits
If you decide to take legal action for your food poisoning, your attorney will likely advise you to target every entity in the supply chain that provided the food to you. For example, a food distributor may have mismarked packages of perishable food, causing the restaurant to believe it was safe for consumption when the food was actually expired. In this situation, the restaurant will likely absorb some measure of liability, but the bulk of the liability will fall on the distributor for its negligence in handling perishable foods.
A food poisoning lawsuit will fall under the purview of personal injury law, and to succeed, the Las Vegas personal injury lawyer representing the case will need to prove the defendant’s negligence. First, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of care, and the defendant breached this duty in some way. In a food poisoning case, this would mean proving the defendant served contaminated food to the plaintiff. Next, the plaintiff will need to link the defendant’s negligence to the plaintiff’s damages, which basically means proving the food poisoning resulted from the defendant’s negligence and not some other cause.
Contact our Food Poisoning Lawyers in Las Vegas
Las Vegas is a bustling city full of places to eat, so you may have trouble nailing down exactly where you contracted food poisoning. The Las Vegas food poisoning attorneys at Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP are here to help. If you sustained food poisoning after eating in Las Vegas, call us today at (888) 498-6487 for a free consultation. We will discuss your case in detail and help you pinpoint the most likely source of your food poisoning, so we can take the appropriate legal action and help you secure compensation for your medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, and other damages.
About Our Attorneys
Our legal team is well known for obtaining record-setting verdicts and settlements throughout Southern California and Nevada. With decades of experience representing injury victims, rest assured that you will be represented by a highly skilled team. Contact our food poisoning attorneys to discuss your case.