Food Recall Injury Rights: Tater Tots, Wawa Milk, Costco Salmonella, and When You Can Sue

A recall is a company's removal of a product from the market, usually with oversight from the FDA (for most foods) or USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (for meat and poultry). The FDA ranks recalls by risk. Under 21 C.F.R. section 7.3, a Class I recall means there is a reasonable probability the product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death; Class II means the harm is likely temporary or medically reversible.

Tater tot recall (McCain Foods)

McCain Foods USA began recalling frozen tater tots on December 3, 2025 because they could contain clear, hard plastic fragments, and expanded the recall in January 2026. FDA enforcement reports list Ore-Ida Tater Tots shaped potatoes (item OIF00215A), Sysco Imperial Potato Tater Barrel (item 1000006067), and Sonic Tots (item SON00543). FDA classified them as Class II.

These were food service packs: 30-pound cases of unlabeled 5-pound bags shipped to restaurants and distributors in more than two dozen states. The December recall alone covered 21,256 cases of Ore-Ida tots and 17,597 cases of the Sysco product. If you ate tater tots at a restaurant, including Sonic, in late 2025 or early 2026, that is where you could have encountered them. Retail bags of Ore-Ida at grocery stores were not the products listed.

Wawa milk and drink recalls

Wawa had two 2026 recalls of its own 16-ounce pint bottles:

• Milk, February 17, 2026: Reduced Fat Milk 2%, Double Dutch Chocolate Milk, Chocolate Low-fat Milk, and Cookies & Cream Milk, after foreign plastic material was found on the fill line. About 5,456 units went to New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. FDA classified it Class II.
• Drinks, April 2, 2026: Iced Tea Lemon, Diet Iced Tea Lemon, Diet Lemonade, and Fruit Punch, for undeclared milk. They went to Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. FDA classified this one Class I, because milk can cause a severe reaction in people with a milk allergy.

Costco meatloaf Salmonella recall

In March 2026, Costco recalled item #30783, Meatloaf with Mashed Yukon Potatoes and Glaze, with sell-by dates from March 5 to March 16, 2026. An ingredient supplier, Griffith Foods, had recalled an ingredient because of possible Salmonella contamination. The meals were sold March 2 to March 13 at Costco warehouses in about two dozen states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. No illnesses were reported at the time.

For the three recalls above, we found no lawsuits as of September 2026. That is the usual pattern when no one is reported sick: a recall with a refund leaves little for a class action to recover, and injury lawsuits need an injured person.

Costco rotisserie chicken Salmonella class action

A different Costco case is live. Taylor v. Costco Wholesale Corporation, No. 2:26-cv-00528, was filed on February 12, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and assigned to Judge Tana Lin. The complaint claims the Lincoln Premium Poultry plant in Nebraska that supplies Kirkland Signature rotisserie chickens has chronic Salmonella problems and has received USDA's worst food safety rating, Category 3, in nearly all reporting periods since 2019. It relies on the Washington Consumer Protection Act and breach of implied warranty. Taylor seeks refunds and damages for buyers, not compensation for illness, and as of September 2026 no class had been certified. Costco denies the claims, and they are allegations only. More on Costco cases is on our Costco lawsuit page.

For why a recall and a class action are different tools, see recall vs. class action.

The key word is causation. Food poisoning symptoms can come from many sources, so the best cases have a lab result. When public health agencies link cases to a food using genetic testing of the bacteria, a matching result from your test can tie your illness to the product. The FDA cites CDC estimates of about 1.35 million Salmonella illnesses, 26,500 hospitalizations, and 420 deaths in the U.S. each year, most from contaminated food, but only a small share of those people ever get tested.

You probably do not have a claim if you threw the food away without eating it, or if your illness started before you ate the product.

Allergic reactions to an undeclared ingredient

Allergen recalls are different from contamination recalls because the harm is immediate and easier to trace. If you have a documented milk allergy, drank one of the recalled Wawa teas, lemonade, or fruit punch, and needed an EpiPen, urgent care, or an ER visit, the timeline between the drink and the reaction does much of the proof work. Keep the bottle (the UPC and code date are on it), your allergy diagnosis records, and the treatment records from that day.

Foreign objects like plastic or metal

For the tater tot and Wawa milk recalls, the hazard was plastic. Injury claims from foreign objects usually involve a broken or chipped tooth, a cut in the mouth or throat, or choking. The object itself is the best evidence, so keep it with the food, photograph both, and see a dentist or doctor promptly so the injury is documented the same day. Without the object, the claim becomes your word against the company's.

For an uneaten recalled item, the answer is simple: return it for a refund. For injuries, compensation can include medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and future care. Most food poisoning cases settle privately for amounts that are never published, and many mild cases resolve for modest sums.

Serious cases can be large. Some reference points:

• A King County, Washington court approved a $15.6 million settlement for Brianne Kiner, who suffered lasting injuries from E. coli in a Jack in the Box hamburger; her lawyer said annuities would bring the lifetime total above $40 million.
• Chipotle agreed in April 2020 to pay a $25 million criminal fine over outbreaks that sickened more than 1,100 people from 2015 to 2018. That money went to the government, not to victims, which shows that regulatory penalties and injury compensation are separate.

Economic class actions like the Costco chicken case, if they succeed, usually pay small per-person amounts, often a few dollars per item, with more for people who have receipts. See whether you need proof of purchase.

Food injury cases are usually brought under state product liability law. The theories are:

• Strict liability: a food that contains a harmful bacteria or foreign object is a defective product, and the maker and sellers can be liable even if they were careful. This is why many food cases turn on proof of causation rather than fault.
• Negligence: the company failed to use reasonable care, for example poor plant sanitation or ignoring test results.
• Breach of warranty: food sold for eating carries an implied promise that it is fit to eat.

Federal law sets the safety rules. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act bars selling adulterated food, and the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act requires labels to declare major allergens such as milk. Those federal laws do not give you a private right to sue, but a violation can support a state law claim.

Outbreaks with many victims are sometimes handled as a mass tort, with each person's claim valued separately, rather than as a single class action. Our guide on class actions versus mass torts explains the difference.

Each state sets a statute of limitations for injury claims. Most states allow two or three years from the date of injury, and a few allow only one year. Claims for a child are often paused until the child turns 18. A wrongful death claim usually runs from the date of death.

Evidence goes stale faster than the legal deadline. Leftover food spoils or gets thrown out, and labs keep samples only for a limited time, so the first days after an illness matter most.

For the recalls on this page, there is no claim deadline because there is no settlement. Refunds are handled by the store, and the recall notice names the contact. In the Costco chicken class action, no class has been certified, so there is no claim form and no deadline yet; if the case settles, the court will approve a notice with dates, and claims will be filed only on the official settlement website.

1. Get medical care and ask for a stool or lab test if you have diarrhea, fever, or vomiting after eating a recalled food. A positive test is the most important piece of evidence you can have.
2. Save the food. Seal what is left, with its packaging, in a freezer bag, label it "do not eat", and freeze it.
3. Report the illness to your local health department, and to FDA (or USDA for meat and poultry). This can link your case to an outbreak.
4. Keep proof of purchase: receipts, loyalty or membership records, and card statements.
5. Do not sign a release or accept a payment from a store or insurer before you know the full cost of your illness.

If you were hospitalized, had a lab-confirmed infection, or were hurt by an object in food, independent attorneys who handle food injury cases can look at your facts. A free case review takes about two minutes. For other product injuries, see our pages on the Walmart dresser recall and the Fairlife milk lawsuit.