By the time most people hear about a major foodborne illness outbreak on the news, Ron Simon has probably already filed a lawsuit.
It is a Tuesday morning in Houston, Texas, and Ron Simon is already on the phone. Somewhere in the country — it could be California, Illinois, or Ohio — someone has just been diagnosed with E. coli O157:H7 after eating at a restaurant chain, and the epidemiological trail is still warm. Simon, who has spent more than three decades fighting food companies in courtrooms across the United States, has a gift for arriving first. His firm, Ron Simon & Associates, has filed the nation’s first lawsuit in seven major foodborne illness outbreaks since 2024 alone. Before that, he was first on the scene at Chipotle, first in the Jif peanut butter Salmonella outbreak, first in outbreak after outbreak going back to the late 1980s.
In person, Simon is deliberate, precise, and surprisingly calm for a man who routinely takes on the biggest food corporations in the world. He has earned his reputation through what his peers describe as a rare combination: a command of food science that rivals that of most microbiologists, a deep understanding of epidemiology and public health investigation, and an aggressive litigation instinct that has forced companies from fast food giants to peanut butter manufacturers to fundamentally rethink how they operate.
Over the course of a wide-ranging conversation, Simon talked about the science of food poisoning, the legal machinery of outbreak litigation, the landmark cases that have shaped his career, and what ordinary Americans still don’t understand about the food they eat every day.
“Most People Have No Idea How Common This Is”
We start at the beginning — with the simple question of scale.
You’ve been doing this for over 35 years. Has the food poisoning problem gotten better or worse?
“It depends on how you measure it. In some ways, the science has gotten much better. Whole genome sequencing — the technology the CDC now uses to link individual cases to outbreak strains — has been transformative. It’s allowed us to connect dots that would have been invisible twenty years ago. But in terms of the sheer number of people getting sick from contaminated food? The numbers are still staggering. The CDC estimates roughly 48 million Americans get food poisoning every year. That’s one in six people. About 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die. Those numbers have barely moved in decades.”
Why? If we know so much more about pathogens, why are we still seeing so many illnesses?
“Several reasons. First, our food supply is extraordinarily complex. A head of romaine lettuce might touch water from an irrigation canal shared with cattle operations, be processed in a facility that handles dozens of other products, then be distributed to forty states before anyone realizes something’s wrong. The supply chain creates enormous opportunities for contamination. Second, enforcement is inconsistent. The FDA and USDA do important work, but they are under-resourced. And third — and this is the part that frustrates me most — companies sometimes know they have a problem and don’t act fast enough. The Peanut Corporation of America case is the most extreme example of that. Executives there were knowingly shipping Salmonella-contaminated peanut products. People died.“
The Science Behind the Litigation
Simon’s fluency in the science of foodborne illness is immediately apparent. He speaks about pathogens the way a seasoned physician might — with precision, not alarm.
Walk us through the most common pathogens you see in your cases.
“Salmonella is the number one cause of foodborne illness deaths in America. It’s incredibly widespread — poultry, eggs, produce, even peanut butter and dietary supplements, as we’ve seen recently. Symptoms typically show up in six to forty-eight hours: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever. For most healthy adults, it’s a miserable week. For the elderly, very young children, or immunocompromised people, it can be fatal.
“E. coli O157:H7 is in some ways even more alarming to me because of what it can do to children specifically. It produces Shiga toxins that can destroy red blood cells and cause kidney failure — a condition called Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, or HUS. A child goes from having a stomachache to being in the ICU on dialysis in the space of a week. I have represented hundreds of children with HUS, and it never becomes routine. It’s horrifying every time.
“Listeria monocytogenes targets a specific group with devastating efficiency: pregnant women, newborns, the elderly, and immunocompromised individuals. The death rate from invasive Listeria infection can exceed 20%. And one of the insidious things about Listeria is that it can grow in refrigerated conditions where most other bacteria can’t, so cold storage doesn’t protect you.
“Norovirus is the most common cause of foodborne illness overall — highly contagious, spreads easily from infected food workers who come to work sick. We’ve handled a number of Chipotle norovirus cases, where a single infected employee contaminated food that sickened hundreds of customers. That’s not an accident. That’s a systemic failure of worker health policies.”
How do you actually prove that a client’s illness came from a specific food source? That seems incredibly difficult.
“It is the central challenge of this kind of litigation, and it’s where early action is so critical. There are three pillars. First, microbiological matching: if a client’s stool sample is tested quickly enough and a pathogen is cultured, we can compare it using whole genome sequencing to the outbreak strain isolated from the food source or other victims. The genetic match tells you, with extraordinary precision, that these organisms came from the same source. But the window is narrow — you have to collect stool samples before antibiotics are started, and even then cultures are sometimes negative.
“Second, epidemiological evidence: the CDC and state health departments conduct outbreak investigations that analyze patterns of exposure. When they find that a statistically improbable number of sick people all ate at the same restaurant or consumed the same product, that is powerful evidence.
“Third, food safety violation evidence: we subpoena inspection records, internal communications, temperature logs, employee sick-leave records. Sometimes what we find is damning. A restaurant knew about a sick employee and let them keep working. A processing facility had documented sanitation failures. Evidence like that not only helps the case — it tends to motivate settlements.”
The Landmark Cases
Simon’s career is defined by a series of major outbreak litigations that changed both the law and industry practice.
Which cases have been the most significant in terms of their impact?
“The Peanut Corporation of America case in 2008–2009 stands apart. Nine people died. Over 700 were sickened across forty-six states. And the evidence that emerged showed that company executives knew they had Salmonella-positive test results and shipped the product anyway — sometimes twice, after retesting found the same contamination. The CEO was ultimately convicted of federal fraud charges. That case resonated far beyond the courtroom. It sent a message to every food company executive in America about personal criminal liability.
“The Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter outbreak in 2006–2007 preceded that and was also enormous. I represented hundreds of victims there, and the compensation secured for them ran into the millions.
“The Chipotle cases are significant for different reasons. Between 2015 and 2018, Chipotle was linked to E. coli outbreaks, multiple Salmonella outbreaks, and several major norovirus outbreaks. We filed first in many of those cases and represented hundreds of victims. What made those cases important was the corporate response: Chipotle ultimately invested heavily in food safety infrastructure, brought in outside food safety consultants, changed their supply chain protocols. The litigation forced change in a way that regulatory pressure alone had not.”
You’ve also been at the forefront of more recent cases. The McDonald’s E. coli outbreak linked to onions in 2024 — walk us through that.
“That outbreak was linked to slivered onions on Quarter Pounders, traced back to a single supplier, Taylor Farms. The CDC ultimately linked more than seventy confirmed cases across multiple states to that source. I filed the first national lawsuits and represented over three dozen families, including families dealing with HUS — the kidney failure complication I mentioned. At least one person died. When an outbreak like that originates in a single ingredient from a single supplier that goes into millions of meals across the country, the scope of potential harm is staggering. Cases like that remind you why the supply chain accountability piece matters so much.”
And more recently, you filed the first lawsuit in the Kebab Shop E. coli outbreak linked to beef from Olympia Food Industries.
“That was just a few weeks ago. California public health officials identified at least nine confirmed illnesses including five hospitalizations linked to beef kofta at Kebab Shop locations across California. The beef was traced to a supplier in Illinois. One of my clients, a child, developed HUS. That’s the pattern I see over and over again — contamination at the supplier level, distributed across a restaurant chain, and children suffering the most severe consequences. We filed first. We will make sure those victims are fully compensated.”
How Food Poisoning Litigation Actually Works
For someone who has been sickened and thinks they have a case, what should they do first?
“Call a lawyer who handles food poisoning cases. Not a general personal injury attorney — someone who focuses on this area. And call quickly. I cannot overstate how time-sensitive these cases are. Evidence disappears. The contaminated food gets consumed or thrown out. Health department investigations have finite timelines. Stool cultures have to be collected before antibiotics are given, because the antibiotics destroy the bacteria needed for testing. Every day of delay costs evidence.
“The first thing we do when we take a case is preserve everything we can. We issue legal holds to restaurants and suppliers to prevent the destruction of records. We contact state health officials to coordinate on the epidemiological investigation. We try to obtain any leftover food for independent testing if it still exists.
“From there, the standard legal theories are strict product liability — which means any company in the supply chain that sold a contaminated product can be held responsible, even without proof that they knew — and negligence, for cases where we can show specific failures in food safety practices.”
What kinds of damages are typically available?
“Medical expenses, both past and future. Lost wages. In cases involving HUS, the damages can be extensive because a child may have permanent kidney damage requiring ongoing treatment and potentially dialysis or transplant later in life. Pain and suffering. In wrongful death cases, the family’s losses. In cases involving egregious corporate conduct — where executives knew about contamination and shipped product anyway — punitive damages may be available, though those cases are rarer.
“Settlements can range from tens of thousands of dollars for a relatively brief illness in an otherwise healthy adult to millions for a case involving permanent organ damage or death.”
You handle these cases on contingency — no fee unless you win. Why is that model important in food poisoning litigation specifically?
“Because many victims couldn’t afford a lawyer otherwise. When a child gets HUS and spends three weeks in the ICU, that family is already financially devastated. They cannot write a check for legal fees. The contingency model lets us represent families who have been seriously harmed regardless of their financial situation, and it aligns our incentives completely with theirs. We only get paid if we recover money for them. That’s the right arrangement for this kind of work.”
The Broader Mission
Over time, the conversation turns to something larger than individual cases — Simon’s philosophy about what food safety litigation is actually for.
Some critics say personal injury litigation is just about money. What would you say to that?
“Results speak for themselves. After the Chipotle outbreaks, Chipotle changed. After the PCA peanut butter cases, the entire peanut industry changed. After Jensen Farms cantaloupes caused the deadliest Listeria outbreak in American history, the cantaloupe industry changed. Regulatory agencies are important, but they move slowly and their resources are limited. Civil litigation creates an immediate financial incentive for companies to fix problems. A company that knows a contamination event could cost it tens of millions in damages is a company that invests in food safety.
“I have been invited to testify before Congress twice about peanut butter safety. I have spoken at food safety conferences, worked with public health officials, and talked to reporters about outbreaks literally hundreds of times over the years. This is not just legal work. It’s public health work.”
What do ordinary Americans most misunderstand about food poisoning?
“They misattribute it constantly. There’s a widespread belief that if you got sick, it was from the last thing you ate. In reality, many pathogens have incubation periods of one to several days. E. coli O157:H7 can take three to four days. Listeria can take weeks. So the meal you blame is often not the meal that made you sick.
“People also underestimate how sick food poisoning can make you. Most people think of it as a bad night and a day off work. But Salmonella can cause post-infectious irritable bowel syndrome that persists for years. E. coli can destroy a child’s kidneys. Listeria can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause meningitis. These are serious medical events.
“And people don’t realize they may have legal recourse. If you were sickened in an outbreak — if you got diagnosed with a culture-confirmed E. coli or Salmonella and your case was linked by health officials to a specific source — you almost certainly have a claim worth pursuing. You didn’t do anything wrong. A company somewhere in the supply chain put a contaminated product in front of you.”
What does the future of food safety litigation look like?
“Technology is changing everything on both sides. Whole genome sequencing has made it much easier to link cases to outbreaks and to link outbreaks to specific sources. That’s enormously beneficial for victims. At the same time, food companies are investing more in rapid testing and supply chain traceability, which should reduce contamination events. We’ll see.
“I’m also watching the imported food supply very carefully. A significant percentage of the fresh produce Americans eat comes from other countries, and the oversight of those supply chains is imperfect. We’ve seen Cyclospora outbreaks linked to imported herbs and produce. That’s an area where I expect we’ll see continued litigation.
“Dietary supplements are an emerging front as well. We filed the first Salmonella lawsuit linked to contaminated Live It Up Super Greens powder earlier this year. People don’t always think of supplements as a food poisoning risk, but they absolutely can be.”
Thirty-Five Years and Counting
As the conversation winds down, Simon is asked the question his clients probably never think to ask: what keeps him doing this after more than three decades?
“You meet the families,” he says simply. “You meet the parents whose child spent a month in the hospital on dialysis, and you understand that what happened to them was completely preventable. A company somewhere in the chain made a decision — or failed to make a decision — that led directly to that child’s suffering. My job is to hold that company accountable, get those parents compensation they need for the medical bills and the long-term care, and make sure it’s hard enough and expensive enough for that company to do better next time.
“After 35 years and over $850 million recovered for more than 6,000 clients, I am still disturbed by it. I don’t think that will ever go away, and honestly, I don’t want it to. That frustration is appropriate. Kids shouldn’t get kidney failure from contaminated hamburgers. Elderly people shouldn’t die from Listeria in soft cheese. These are preventable tragedies, and the companies responsible for preventing them need to know that someone is watching, and that the cost of failure is real.”
Note about out guest: Ron Simon is the founding attorney of Ron Simon & Associates, a national food safety law firm based in Houston, Texas. He has been named a Texas Super Lawyer 21 consecutive times and is a member of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers list by the National Trial Lawyers Association. He can be reached at 1-888-335-4901 or at ronsimonassociates.com.
