Sick After a
Restaurant Meal?
Injury Law Made Personal®
Cyclospora does not come from bad luck. It comes from produce that was contaminated before it ever reached the kitchen, and it usually makes more than one person sick. If a restaurant meal left you with cramps, nausea and diarrhea that would not quit, health department and supplier records may already connect your illness to an outbreak. Ankin Law has fought for injured Illinois families for over 40 years.
Call 312.600.0000 Free Case ReviewHow a Contaminated Meal Becomes a Case
The Situation
Dinner out, a fresh salad, nothing unusual. Cyclospora has no taste and no smell, and washing does not reliably remove it. The parasite arrives on fresh produce — often imported herbs, leafy greens or berries — and by the time anything feels wrong, days have passed. You did nothing careless. You ate food a restaurant is required to serve fit for consumption.
The Accident
Symptoms usually start about a week later, which is why almost nobody blames the right meal. Watery diarrhea, cramping, nausea, exhaustion, weight loss. Untreated, Cyclospora can run for weeks or even months and come back in waves — it does not clear on its own the way ordinary food poisoning does. It needs a specific prescription antibiotic, and it needs a diagnosis first.
The Solution
Restaurants, distributors, growers — Ankin Law investigates the whole chain. Where the produce came from, which lot it belonged to, who else got sick from it, and what the health department already knows. Howard Ankin has fought for injured Illinois families for over 40 years, and no fee is owed unless we win.
Is a Free Consultation Really Free?
Howard Ankin answers your questions directly.
What Illinois Law Says About Contaminated Food
is generally all the time Illinois gives you to bring a personal injury claim for a foodborne illness — and the evidence that proves it starts disappearing in days, not years
is what turns a miserable week into a provable case. Cyclospora is confirmed by a specific stool test doctors do not run automatically — you usually have to ask for it by name
can apply to food sold in a contaminated condition in Illinois — meaning you may not have to prove the restaurant was careless, only that the food was unfit when it was served
Who Is Responsible — and What You Can Recover
The Restaurant
A restaurant that serves you contaminated food can be liable for it. That covers how the food was sourced, stored, washed and handled, and whether the kitchen followed the health code. Restaurants are also required to keep supplier invoices, which is how a single plate gets traced back to a specific lot of produce.
The Distributor and the Grower
Cyclospora almost never starts in the kitchen. It rides in on fresh produce, frequently imported, contaminated at the farm or in washing water. Everyone in the chain of distribution — grower, packer, importer, distributor — can be held responsible, and those defendants often carry far more insurance than the restaurant does.
What You Can Recover
Doctor visits, testing, prescriptions and hospital care, wages for every day the illness kept you from working, and out-of-pocket costs. Where the illness dragged on for weeks or caused lasting complications, pain and suffering and loss of normal life as well.
Why Ankin Law Is the Right Call After a Foodborne Illness
The Evidence Spoils — Literally
The produce that made you sick is thrown out within days. What survives is paper: your receipt, your card statement, the restaurant’s supplier invoices and lot codes. Ankin Law moves at once to demand those records before a routine document retention policy quietly disposes of them.
You Are Probably Not the Only One
Cyclospora arrives in clusters. Illinois requires confirmed cases to be reported to public health, and those reports, health department inspections and federal traceback investigations can tie your illness to other diners and to a specific shipment. Knowing how to obtain that record is most of the case.
No Fee Unless You Win
You pay nothing to start and nothing unless Ankin Law recovers for you. You get the same aggressive representation whether you can afford it today or not. Howard Ankin has been doing this for over 40 years.
Get Your Free Case Review
If you were diagnosed with Cyclospora or another foodborne illness after eating out, the receipts, invoices and lab results that prove it will not wait. Contact us today for a free, confidential consultation with no obligation.
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