$6.7 Million Verdict for Man Paralyzed by Guillain-Barre Syndrome After Eating Contaminated Oysters at Tampa Restaurant

On December 21, 2013, Angel Martinez and his wife Maria Elena sat down for dinner at Lobster Haven, a seafood market and restaurant on West Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa. They ordered what they usually got: two 3-pound lobsters and a dozen raw Blue Point oysters. Within hours of arriving home, both became violently ill with vomiting and diarrhea. Maria Elena recovered within a few days. Her husband did not.

Over the following weeks, Angel Martinez's condition worsened. He lost the ability to stand. After several emergency visits to Pasco Regional Medical Center, he was transferred to Tampa General Hospital, where he remained for 43 days. Physicians diagnosed him with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder in which the body's immune system attacks peripheral nerves. The condition left him paralyzed from the waist down. Though he eventually relearned to walk, he was left with permanent nerve damage, chronic pain, sensory deficits, and ongoing fatigue. His medical bills topped $325,000.

Swope, Rodante P.A. attorneys Brandon Cathey, Brent Steinberg, and Daniel Greene filed suit against Lobster Haven. The defense conceded at trial that the restaurant's seafood contained a defect, but disputed whether contaminated food could cause Guillain-Barre syndrome, arguing the link was speculative. The plaintiffs presented expert testimony establishing a recognized causal pathway: the contaminated oysters caused the gastrointestinal infection, which in turn triggered the autoimmune response responsible for Martinez's nerve damage.

After a three-day second trial, the jury deliberated for roughly one hour before returning a verdict of $6.7 million, including $6.3 million in non-economic damages. Lobster Haven's insurer had offered $20,000 to settle the case in 2016.

The trial court subsequently granted the defense a judgment in accordance with its motion for directed verdict, setting aside the jury's award. On appeal, Florida's Second District Court of Appeal reversed that ruling in May 2021 (320 So.3d 873). The appellate court held that the defense had not properly preserved its directed-verdict motion from the first trial, and that the trial judge had misapplied the inference-stacking doctrine: because the restaurant had stipulated to the food defect, the jury needed no stacked inferences to connect the defective oysters to Martinez's GBS diagnosis. The $6.7 million verdict was reinstated.