Personal Injury Attorney

Along with ridesharing and streaming services another industry that has exploded in the past decade is direct to consumer food products. Instead of the consumer purchasing through the product inside a local grocery store, the consumer will hear about the product through online ads or word of mouth and will purchase it online, often in the manner of a subscription that will be mailed to them as often as they wish. The majority of these products are do-it-yourself culinary delicacies, niche novelties, or the most popular DTC: healthy alternatives. But as a personal injury attorney from Eric Roy Law Firm can explain, those healthy alternatives aren’t always good for you as several consumers who are filing personal injury lawsuits against Daily Harvest have found out. 

Brand Influencer Claims

Several influencers for the brand filed their lawsuits after falling ill and spending time in the hospital experiencing puzzling symptoms of gastrointestinal pain and elevated liver enzymes. According to the suit, “After consuming the Daily Harvest Lentil Crumbles, plaintiff became violently ill, required hospitalization and endured the surgical removal of his gallbladder,” the complaint states. It also mentions that the influencers in question had no significant health problems prior to the product’s consumption.

Since then, Daily Harvest has pulled its French Lentil and Leek Crumbles and reached out to those who have records of ordering them. They’ve also made it known that they’ll be working with the FDA to identify the root cause of the adverse symptoms. One element that Plaintiffs are emphasizing in the case is that Daily Harvest “issued vaguely worded and insufficient warnings to its customers and influencers.” This happens to be one of the elements that one needs to prove in a strong Strict Product Liability case.

In a strict product liability case, the plaintiff usually must show that:

1. a product was sold in an unreasonably dangerous condition or with an inadequate warning.

2. the seller expected and intended that the product would reach the consumer without changes to the product, and 3. the plaintiff (or the plaintiff’s property) was injured by the defective product.

There are many types of arguments for defective products but strict liability is the main theory as establishing the burden of proof is easier to meet than the basis and evidence for a fraud case. Also strict liability lets a plaintiff recover the complete range of damages including pain in suffering which is excluded in other case types like “breach of warranty” in which compensation is limited to economic damages.