In “How to document a food poisoning case,” an article printed in the November, 2004 issue of Trial Magazine, Dave Babcock and I explain:  As a general rule, food poisoning cases are products liability cases.2 In other words, they are brought forward under the doctrine of strict liability. Since it does not require great legal argument to establish that a sandwich contaminated with Salmonella or some other pathogen is “defective” under statutory or common law definitions, the battle is fought in proving that the food your client consumed was in fact contaminated, and therefore the source of the client’s injuries.