Minnesota woman sues Chipotle over salmonella infection that left her hospitalized

A Minnesota woman who was hospitalized with salmonella after eating at a Chipotle restaurant is now suing the fast-casual chain, alleging the company was negligent in handling its produce.

The plaintiff, Kristen Behne, is among more than 100 Minnesotans who fell ill during a recent salmonella outbreak linked to jalapeño peppers grown in Mexico.

RELATED: Chipotle pulls jalapeños amid Minnesota salmonella outbreak

Behne, who filed the lawsuit this week in federal court, said she fell ill after she ate a burrito bowl from Chipotle’s Roseville location on June 24. Her order included three items that use raw jalapeños as ingredients, and her strain of salmonella matched with the genome traced to Chipotle’s peppers, the lawsuit states.

Over the course of her illness, Behne fainted, registered a fever of 102 degrees and suffered, chills, muscle aches, joint pain, cramping, vomiting and diarrhea. She was admitted to the hospital on June 28 with sepsis and dehydration and was discharged two days later; the filing claims she still hasn’t made a full recovery.

Behne seeks $75,000 in damages to cover her medical bills and to compensate her for physical, mental and emotional suffering.

The filing claims Chipotle hadn’t “learned its lesson” from its history of foodborne illnesses. The company paid a record-setting $25 million fine in 2020 following a string of outbreaks from 2015 through 2018, including a 2015 salmonella outbreak that sickened 64 people in Minnesota.

A nationwide outbreak

This summer’s salmonella outbreak was traced to contaminated jalapeño peppers from a producer in Sinaloa, Mexico, that supplies Chipotle and Qdoba restaurants, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

As of Wednesday, the FDA had received reports of 345 cases and 36 hospitalizations across 27 states, including at least 110 cases in Minnesota. More than 90% of patients interviewed reported eating at Mexican-style restaurants between June 14 and July 14.

All contaminated peppers have since been pulled from shelves, and the outbreak is no longer considered active, the FDA said.

In a statement, Chipotle said its “robust ingredient traceability system” allowed the company to “proactively” remove jalapeños from the affected lot from stores once it learned of the salmonella outbreak.

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