Food Contaminations
Food Contaminations, Food & Beverage Illness, Intentional Food & Beverage Contaminations, Inadvertent Contaminations, Food Borne Illness, and more…
No one heads to a restaurant expecting to come home puking their guts out or dropping to the ground because they ingested acid in their beer or human fecal matter intentionally put in their bean burrito – but cases like this happen rather regularly across the United States and around the globe.
Unfortunately, intentional food and beverage contaminations, inadvertent food and beverage contaminations, food-borne illness, falsified food-borne illness, and countless other food and beverage issues happen that lead to people losing their guts, their life, their internal organs, and more.
In fact, it happens many times every single week across the country and around the globe and is one of the restaurant industry’s recognized hazards.
Every year, thousands of employees and customers get sick, severely ill, maimed, harmed, injured, and even die from these types of incidents and accidents in America’s restaurants.
The facts speak for themselves, before this calendar year is out, thousands will be left severely injured, harmed, sickened, maimed, and killed due to the impact of contaminated or unsafe foods and beverages.
“So, what’s going on in America’s restaurants?” you ask.
Well, the best answer that I can give you is this: The restaurant industry—the industry that I dearly love and have spent my entire career working in—is covered up with incompetence, mediocrity, and management neglect. Simply stated… many of those placed in charge of restaurant premises and responsible for the safety, health, and security of people and premises lack basic dangerous condition awareness, safety and security training, and basic day-to-day operational education to even know how to serve safe, secure, and reliable foods and beverages the correct way and per the industry standards and standards of care.
Let’s face it…. If you swallow something you shouldn’t your organ seizures and shutdown will cause you some serious problems.
Most of the cases that I’m referring to you’ve probably never heard about; and, for the most part, you probably never will unless something similar happens to one of your employees or customers in a restaurant you frequent or a restaurant nearby. We certainly hope that you never have to experience anything like them first-hand; however, we have—and we do—because I am both an expert and an author, so I spend my time dealing with these kinds of matters.
What makes us truly different is that we own and operate Restaurant Expert Witness—America’s most visible and prolific testifying and consulting forensic expert witness firm that deals with only restaurant and bar industry lawsuits, insurance claims, litigation, and pre-litigation matters.
I speak from experience (probably like no other on the planet) with more than 300 litigation cases and hundreds of pre-litigation consulting projects to my credit, which have allowed me to have special insight, knowledge, and experience to provide this content to you from such a highly unique perspective when your client has to experience this mess.
Why don’t you hear more about these types of matters? Why don’t they appear in the headline news? The answer is simple—protective orders; protective orders and confidentiality agreements are put in place by the attorneys and the judges to keep these matters quiet, confidential, and on the “down low”—at least, as much as reasonably possible anyhow.
This allows these matters to be tried without much outside interference from public opinion. We call this the “not-so-public, public record.” However, because of what we do for a living, we are privy to nearly every aspect of these incidents and what the hard evidence actually reveals.
We see firsthand the restaurant industry and/or company policies, procedures, operating systems, and practices that the restaurants at the center of these underlying legal matters are (or are not) implementing. We see evidence of what is (and is not) the culture of safety created by the company and, in turn, echoed by the management from the “top of the heap” to the employees on the front lines.
We have probably seen more policy and procedural manuals from more restaurant industry organizations and establishments—the giants and the independents—than anyone on the face of the Earth. Of course, we’re not allowed to share this information, as we are bound by protective orders and confidentiality agreements too, and we must shred or return all files at the conclusion of each case; but the heartbreaking stories of the victims and the absolutely horrific pictures of those who were injured, harmed, sickened, maimed, and killed will be forever etched in our memories.
These matters result in billions of dollars in claims, judgments, awards, damages, and citations each year. Countless checks are written to attorneys, investigators, court reporters, various experts, and others; and an unbelievable number of man-hours are expended by those who would be better served by running their restaurants than by answering interrogatories, pulling together discovery documents, and making appearances at depositions and trials.
As you may well know, making a profit in the restaurant industry is no easy task to begin with; so just imagine how difficult it becomes when ownership and management have to dedicate countless hours and relatively large amounts of money defending themselves, the business, their policies and procedures, their standards, their company culture, their actions, and the actions of their employees.
If current trends continue, more people than ever before will be injured, harmed, sickened, maimed, or killed on the premises of America’s restaurants this year, next year, and in the years to follow. In an ever-growing litigious society, these kinds of incidents will lead to even more lawsuits and insurance claims filed against restaurants; and even more restaurants operators will have to spend their valuable time, money, and effort defending themselves (and paying judgments) than any other time in our nation’s history.
If you have a case where your client is either the plaintiff or the defendant in a food or beverage contamination case – whether it is intentional or inadvertent, or a case involving food-borne illness, food sickness, beverage sickness or any type, kind, or style of injury, harm, damage, sickness, illness or death from the consumption of food or beverage in a restaurant, from delivery, from carryout, while on a Cruise Ship, while on an airplane, while at a sporting event, during a catering event or other…. Give us a call. We would be happy to walk you through the landmines that litter the field of play when it comes to food and beverage contaminations, illnesses, sicknesses, toxins, allergens, and harm.
Give us a call.