Injuries at school can cause students serious harm, even at times proving fatal. Food poisoning is one of those common concerns when the school does not store or prepare food properly, and students suffer as a result. In some cases, the school itself may be liable to pay for the student's harm. In other cases, the food provider or preparer may owe monetary damages to compensate for the student's loss. Retain the Lento Law Firm's Education Law Team to investigate your school food poisoning claim or a claim on behalf of your minor student. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to tell us about your case. Do not delay. Delay may bar a claim.
School Food Preparation and Storage Issues
Schools prepare a lot of food, not just lunches but also breakfasts, snacks, and, at times, evening meals. Foodservice is common not just at the K-12 level but also at colleges and universities, in dining halls, dormitories, concession stands, and special events. Schools sometimes contract with professional food services to provide for those food preparation needs. The quality of those professional services can vary widely, depending on ownership, management, and the skills and experience of available personnel. Schools also often handle their own food purchasing, storage, preparation, and service, using employees with varying experience and skill.
Thus, don't be surprised if you or your student suffered food poisoning from school food. School food services may lack the quality control, safety, and security procedures of national, regional, and local restaurant chains and restaurants. They may lack the kitchens, kitchen equipment, and training and inspection procedures of a recognized commercial food service. They may purchase spoiled, outdated, off-brand, and low-quality ingredients. They may not properly store perishable foods. They may not prepare those foods in standard ways necessary for bacteria control and other precautions. And they may not serve the food at proper temperatures with proper hygiene. Food poisoning can easily be the result of poor school food service procedures, including one or more of the following:
- purchasing rotten meats, bacteria-laden produce, and out-of-date, spoiled ingredients, even if properly prepared and served;
- not heating ingredients to boiling, not cooking meat to bacteria-killing temperatures, and not checking food-preparation temperatures;
- not keeping served foods hot enough or cold enough to prevent bacteria from forming and food spoiling after preparation, before consumption; and
- failing to train personnel in food preparation procedures and failing to monitor and inspect food stations and storage.
Food Poisoning Harm and Damages
When food poisoning occurs, it can lead to serious student harm. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that food poisoning can cause severe abdominal pain and cramping, diarrhea, including blood in the stool, vomiting, dehydration, and fever. When food poisoning spreads bacteria and other pathogens, it can cause or aggravate meningitis, brain or nerve damage, kidney damage, kidney failure, and arthritis, among other conditions. Most people associate food poisoning with 24 to 48 hours of severe discomfort. Unfortunately, food poisoning can result in much worse, including long-term or even permanent injury.
When food poisoning occurs in a student, the student is going to miss classes and study time until reasonably recovered. That interruption in studies may mean missing assignments and exams, suffering lower or failing grades, losing class standing, awards, and scholarships, and even suffering probation, suspension, or dismissal. Even if food poisoning and its longer-term effects do not affect academic performance overall, food poisoning can result in substantial medical expenses, lost wages because of an inability to work, and other costs and expenses such as lost tuition or school fees incurred. Food poisoning can set a student seriously back. The harm can be more than a little or a lot of discomfort.
Legal Claims Against the School
State laws generally provide for tort claim recoveries against individuals and organizations that negligently or carelessly cause another injury, loss, or damage. You or your student may have a negligence, gross negligence, or similar tort claim against the school, one that would allow you or your student to make a monetary recovery for all attendant harm. That recovery could potentially include not only economic or out-of-pocket losses like medical expenses and work loss but also substantial non-economic damages for pain and suffering, embarrassment, humiliation, fear, fright, shock, other mental and emotional distress, and lost enjoyment of life. Let us help you evaluate and estimate those money damages.
Public Schools Versus Private Schools
Tort claims against a private school would generally proceed as against a private corporation or individual without concerns over governmental immunity. However, if your school or the school your minor student attends is a public K-12 school or public college or university, then the ability to maintain a claim for monetary damages may depend on special state laws for governmental liability. Some of those laws require proof of gross negligence rather than ordinary negligence. Others of those laws require proof of recklessness, willful and wanton misconduct, or other special forms of misconduct greater than ordinary negligence. But the laws vary widely. Don't make any assumptions. Instead, let our skilled and experienced Education Law Team help evaluate the claim.
Procedural Issues with Claims Against Public Schools
If you or your student attend a public school, and the school was responsible for food poisoning that caused you or your student harm, you may also need to meet some strict procedural requirements to satisfy governmental liability laws. Some states, like New York, impose short notice-of-claim periods, requiring that you notify the school in writing within thirty, sixty, or ninety days of the harm, or the law may bar your claim. Other states require that you proceed in an administrative rather than court forum. And some states, like Michigan, may require that you sue in a special court of claims. Suing public schools for food poisoning or other personal injury generally requires meeting additional laws, rules, and procedures that criminal defense lawyers and civil litigators may not know. Retain our premier Education Law Team for the knowledge and skills you need to evaluate and pursue your claim.
Legal Claims Against Food Providers and Preparers
Even if your state's laws discourage civil money damage lawsuits against public schools, or you determine not to sue your school for other reasons, you or your student may have a claim against a third-party food service provider. Just because a public school has immunity does not mean that contractors providing services for the school would also have immunity. They generally would not. The theories of recovery against a third-party food service provider may also be easier to prove. The law may well recognize an ordinary negligence claim without having to prove gross negligence, recklessness, or some other higher degree of reprehensible action. The damages recoverable would generally be the same as the damages recoverable against the school. Let us help evaluate your claim against a third-party food service provider. You or your student may even have claims against both the school and the third party.
Liability Insurance for School Food Poisoning Claims
You should not generally be concerned that your school food poisoning claim would affect the general funds of the school or lead to individual liability paid out of individual funds. Rather, public schools may have either liability insurance, access to a public agency liability pool, or other reserve funds to pay tort claims, as the law allows and requires. Missouri law, for instance, authorizes local government agencies to purchase liability insurance. If your claim is against a private school or third-party food service provider, those entities are even more likely to have liability insurance out of which to pay the money damages. If only an individual food service worker is to blame, the school or food service provider employing the worker would generally have vicarious liability for the individual's wrongdoing and would indemnify and defend the worker. How the school pays should not be your concern. Let us help locate the responsible party and insurer or fund.
Other Issues in School Food Poisoning Cases
You can see from the above discussion that school food poisoning cases can present special challenges, more than the simple auto-accident cases that many civil litigation attorneys prefer to handle. Do not retain unqualified local criminal defense counsel or civil litigator. Our Education Law Team has the skills and experience you need for competent and effective representation. Not only may your claim have to avoid governmental immunity, include an early notice of claim, and proceed in a special administrative or court of claims forum. Your claim may also involve difficult questions about what caused your severe abdominal pain, infection, and other harms and symptoms and how those symptoms affected your health, welfare, education, and income. We know how to gather causation evidence from sickness patterns, medical testing, and forensic consultants and how to prove your food poisoning damages.
What to Do When Suffering School Food Poisoning
If you or your student believe that school food poisoning has brought about injury, loss, and harm, then immediately seek medical examination and treatment. When relating to medical examiners and treaters the debilitating condition's onset, be sure to indicate its relationship to the school food or drink that you believe was the cause. Medical personnel should record that onset and may be able to examine and test for food poisoning. Retain any food packaging, bottling, wrapping, or sample available to you. Identify others simultaneously affected. Alert the school food service promptly, requesting that they retain as evidence the disputed food or drink items and records relating to their purchase, sale, and expiration date. Above all, promptly contact our offices so that our attorneys can help you take the above steps, gather the evidence, document your claim, and give timely notice of the claim according to your state's law. If the school or its insurance agent contacts you about your claim, we can help you respond with the appropriate information for early settlement of your claim.
The Claims Resolution Procedure
As the above discussion indicates, you may well have the right to sue your school or the school's food service provider for the food poisoning that you or your minor student suffered due to negligence or other wrong. But suing in a court of law may not be necessary. Most personal injury claims are settled out of court. Many claims settle even before litigation commences, especially when you have our help investigating, documenting, and presenting your claim. Insurance companies and their attorneys and adjusters have their own incentives to reduce transaction costs by settling cases early. But they generally will not do so unless the claimant alleges and documents the evidence for a convincing case. That's where our attorneys can help you document and advocate your case. Our negotiation may help your matter resolve even before having to file suit. But if the school and its insurer do not act responsibly with respect to your meritorious claim, then we are ready to back it up with the administrative filings and court litigation necessary to enforce your rights.
Premier Education Law Team for School Food Poisoning Claims
When you consider suing a school for food poisoning, especially a public school, you need more than a real estate lawyer, wills and trusts lawyer, or criminal defense attorney. You need lawyers who know not only the civil tort laws but also the laws of government immunity and liability and related administrative procedures. If you or your student have suffered food poisoning in a K-12 school or at a college or university, don't retain unqualified representation, and don't rest on your monetary recovery rights. Delay could bar your money damages claim. Retain the Lento Law Firm's Education Law Team now to evaluate and pursue your claim or the claim of your minor student. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our skilled and experienced representation.
