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South Florida Food Poisoning and Contamination Lawyer, Florida Food Poisoning and Contamination AttorneysSouth Florida food poisoning and contamination lawyer David I. Fuchs has over 17 years of experience in successfully representing food poisoning and contamination victims, their families and friends who have sustained and suffered serious bodily injuries because of the negligence of the manufacturer or seller of food items that are not fit for consumption. The U.S. product liability system was designed to alleviate the economic costs that individuals incur due to defective products, including food products contaminated by microbial pathogens. Under current law, consumers who suffer a foodborne illness can seek monetary compensation for their injuries through the courts. Firms producing these defective products are liable for medical and other costs to ill consumers. Firms may incur other costs such as legal fees, higher insurance costs, and lost market share and profits. Economic theory suggests that foodborne illness litigation is a signal for firms to invest more in food safety, ultimately resulting in a lower incidence of foodborne illness and an increase in general social welfare. However, the vast majority of consumers who experience a foodborne illness do not file a legal claim, or else drop or resolve their claim prior to court proceedings, almost always out of public view. Data on legal outcomes for food poisoning lawsuits are scarce and most available data are for cases that result in jury verdicts. Buzby and Frenzen (1999) performed a preliminary study that analyzed a sample of food poisoning jury verdicts to assess the economic incentives provided by the legal system for firms to produce safer food. More recently, Buzby et al. (2001 see below) found that juries awarded damages in a third of the 178 food poisoning lawsuits between 1988 and 1997. However, some of these consumers received substantial sums, significantly elevating the average award ($133,280) above the median ($25,560). Food poisoning litigation is also a slow process, and the average lawsuit was tried more than three years after the incident that resulted in illness. Less than half (48 percent) of the food poisoning lawsuits involved a specific foodborne pathogen or illness. The case summaries for some lawsuits may have failed to record pathogen names, so the actual proportion of lawsuits that involved a specific pathogen might be somewhat higher. Among the lawsuits that named a pathogen, Salmonella was the most frequently cited, followed by hepatitis (any type). Most lawsuits (92 percent) identified some kind of food as the cause of illness. However, one-fourth (26 percent) of the lawsuits simply named meals such as "dinner" or food categories such as "fast food" that presumably included multiple food items, leaving the precise source of illness unclear. In contrast, two-thirds of the lawsuits (66 percent) identified a specific food item or type of food as the cause of illness. The most frequently mentioned foods were sandwiches, followed by seafood (excluding oysters) and chicken. The study found that the use of food poisoning lawsuit data as a basis for asserting that confidential settlements, health insurance, and product liability insurance distorts legal incentives to produce safer food. They also argue that the low monetary compensation costs of food safety lawsuits relative to their high information and transaction costs provide a weak incentive to pursue litigation. South Florida food poisoning and contamination lawyer David I. Fuchs will also represent you in personal injury cases for injuries that include, but are not limited to:
After consumption of a food product that makes you sick and ill is imperative to seek immediate medical treatment. It is then important to seek legal counsel to protect your legal rights by calling Florida food poisoning and contamination lawyer David I. Fuchs who will take your call and speak with you immediately about your food poisoning cases. Florida food poisoning and contamination lawyer David I. Fuchs will then stand ready to fight for you to see that you get compensation for your pain and suffering, any lost wages and medical bills. Call South Florida food poisoning and contamination attorney David I. Fuchs Toll Free at 800-570-2858 for a free consultation to discuss your food poisoning case. You may also write to South Florida food poisoning and contamination attorney David I. Fuchs by filling out the form on the "Contact Us" page." If you can not come to us South Florida food poisoning and contamination lawyer David I. Fuchs will send a representative to see you. We speak English and Spanish. Se habla ingles y espanol. Llame David Fuchs Florida abogado de intoxicación. |