If you have been to a restaurant or event recently, and you’ve been suffering from a watery diarrhea ever since, there’s a chance you may have contracted cyclosporiasis, an illness caused by a single parasite. Outbreaks have been reported in Wisconsin and Texas in the last few months, and public health officials speculate that the affliction may stem from cilantro, as prior outbreaks have been tied to cilantro from the Puebla region in Mexico.
According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), at least 476 people from 29 states had confirmed cases of Cyclospora infection in 2015, including 162 in Texas and 23 in Georgia. All those afflicted reported symptoms on or after May 1, 2015, and none of them had been outside the United States within two weeks of exhibiting symptoms.
There is nothing to prohibit you from suing a restaurant, resort, meeting planning or caterer for food poisoning, or for any disease contracted from eating food they prepared or provided. The initial challenge, though, involves proving that it was in fact a specific meal or source of food that caused your illness.
- If you can show that there were others who ate the same thing you ate at or around the same time you ate it, that can be introduced as circumstantial evidence of a connection. However, it will ultimately be up to a jury to decide whether you have demonstrated a causal link between what you believe to be the source of your illness, and your injury.
- If you can show that the restaurant ignored health regulations—did not refrigerate foods that require refrigeration, allowed unsanitary conditions to exist, neglected to make certain workers maintained sanitary conditions—that can also be circumstantial evidence to support your claim.
Contact Our Office
For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 973-993-8787. We have office locations in Morristown and Newton, but will visit you in your home or the hospital, if necessary.