--- title: Life Lessons date: 2026-05-11T15:39:00-07:00 author: Julie Dueck canonical_url: "https://marlerclark.com/news_events/life-lessons" section: News --- [All News](/news_events) / [Publications](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/publications) / # Life Lessons QA Magazine | By McKenna Christy | May 2026 Bill Marler was once an early-career lawyer in the Seattle area taking all kinds of cases that would get him to trial. His career completely changed after representing a woman who slipped and fell at work. In January 1993, the first case in the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak was reported, ultimately resulting in the deaths of four children due to undercooked burgers. The woman Marler had helped with her worker’s compensation reconnected with him during this time. “She was friends with one of the Jack in the Box victims,” said Marler. “She called me and said, ‘Hey, my friend’s kid is in the hospital.’ That was the very beginning of figuring this out. I met the family and ended up filing essentially one of the very first Jack in the Box lawsuits.” At 19, while attending Washington State University before law school, Marler became the youngest person and first student elected to Pullman City Council, where he grew to know university reporters who went on to work professionally in the area. After calling a reporter to discuss the lawsuit he filed on behalf of Brianne Kiner, a 9-year-old victim and survivor of the Jack in the Box outbreak, and her family, Marler became the face of the outbreak’s legal side, speaking on TV almost nightly. Not only did Marler become a front-facing leader during the outbreak, but he also dove into the documents that uncovered the truth of the case. “I was the one that uncovered the documents that ultimately implicated Jack in the Box in knowingly undercooking hamburgers and violating the food code,” he said. “I wound up representing a lot of the really seriously injured children.” Kiner received a $15.6 million settlement from the lawsuit, and Marler represented more than 100 other victims of the outbreak. Following the outbreak, lawyers around the country began to refer to Marler for foodborne illness-related cases, leading him to consider focusing his legal specialty on food safety. Marler reached out to Bruce Clark, former chief counsel for Jack in the Box during the outbreak, to try to bring him on as a partner at the firm he worked at, because he was the only other lawyer Marler knew of with experience in this area of law. Instead, in September 1998, the two opened their own firm, Marler Clark. “Since then, we’ve been involved in every major and minor foodborne illness outbreak that’s occurred in the U.S., and several around the world,” said Marler. From helping push the Food Safety Modernization Act into law to his prominent role in the 2023 Netflix documentary “Poisoned: The Dirty Truth About Your Food,” Marler shared more with QA about his legal career in food safety, where he thinks he’s made a difference and what he hopes comes next in the fight against foodborne illness. From 1993 to 2000, like 90% of what I did was E. coli cases linked to hamburger. Finally, it became an adulterant. There was testing, there were recalls, there were lawsuits; it became really expensive to deal with it. \[The government and companies\] finally just said, ‘OK, fine.’ The proof is in the fact that I hardly ever have an E. coli case linked to hamburger. It’s good news. The work that was done in the 90s, there’s absolutely no question that it saved kids’ lives. I’m lucky in the sense that I’ve been doing this kind of work since 1993. I really enjoy what I’m doing. I think that the work that I’ve done both as a lawyer and as a food safety advocate has made a difference to my clients’ lives. \[My career has\] been a blast. I can’t believe how fast it’s gone. And there’s still more to do. I was thinking about the last scene of \[‘Poisoned’\] where I was like, ‘Well, I guess it’s time to get back to work.’ I think in the doc it shows that some of it’s been pretty frustrating. I really do think we should have made more progress. There’s just things that drive me nuts, like romaine lettuce E. coli outbreaks. We haven’t come to grips with the environmental contamination that causes it and what we could do to fix that. Half of the 1.3 million Americans who get Salmonella every year, it’s likely that comes from chicken. But we can’t seem to take that step that we did with hamburger. Nothing’s perfect, but you can’t be the person that makes perfect the enemy of the good. Sometimes I think the best thing we can do is do as good as we can. My hope for the future is that companies and people feel comfortable about being transparent, that they feel comfortable sharing knowledge with their competitors and the public to tell the truth and not avoid difficult things. ### Lawsuit updates about foodborne illnesses [Reactive Arthritis Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=reactive-arthritis&year=all) [E. coli Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=e-coli&year=all) [Guillain-Barre Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=guillain-barre-syndrome&year=all) [Salmonella Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=salmonella&year=all) [Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=hemolytic-uremic-syndrome&year=all) [Listeria Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=listeria&year=all) [Irritable Bowel Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=irritable-bowel-syndrome&year=all) [Hepatitis A Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=hepatitis-a&year=all) [Norovirus Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=norovirus&year=all) [Botulism Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=botulism&year=all) [Campylobacter Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=campylobacter&year=all) [Shigella Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=shigella&year=all) [Cyclospora Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=cyclospora&year=all) ### Lawsuits updates by year [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 1998](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=1998) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 1999](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=1999) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2000](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2000) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2001](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2001) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2002](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2002) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2003](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2003) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2004](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2004) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2005](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2005) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2006](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2006) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2007](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2007) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2008](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2008) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2009](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2009) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2010](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2010) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2011](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2011) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2012](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2012) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2013](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2013) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2014](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2014) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2015](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2015) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2016](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2016) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2017](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2017) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2018](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2018) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2019](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2019) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2020](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2020) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2021](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2021) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2022](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2022) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2023](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2023) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2024](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2024) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2025](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2025) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2026](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2026) ##### Get Help #### Affected by an outbreak or recall? The team at Marler Clark is here to answer all your questions. Find out if you’re eligible for a lawsuit, what questions to ask your doctor, and more. [ Get a free consultation ](https://marlerclark.com/contact) ##### Outbreak Database #### Looking for a comprehensive list of outbreaks? The team at Marler Clark is here to answer all your questions. Find out if you’re eligible for a lawsuit, what questions to ask your doctor, and more. [ View Outbreak Database ](https://outbreakdatabase.com)