--- title: San Diego County Family Sues Ramona Family Naturals Market and Happy Hens Egg Ranch Over Salmonella Outbreak Traced to Raw-Egg Mayonnaise date: 2026-09-10T13:36:00-07:00 author: Julie Dueck canonical_url: "https://marlerclark.com/news_events/san-diego-county-family-sues-ramona-family-naturals-market-and-happy-hens-egg-ranch-over-salmonella-outbreak-traced-to-raw-egg-mayonnaise" section: News --- [All News](/news_events) / [Press Releases](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/press-releases) / # San Diego County Family Sues Ramona Family Naturals Market and Happy Hens Egg Ranch Over Salmonella Outbreak Traced to Raw-Egg Mayonnaise **Marler Clark is representing several individuals in this *Salmonella* lawsuit** *Whitney Hight ate Ramona Red chicken salad on June 25 and spent the next ten days too sick to stand. California law required the Market to use pasteurized eggs in mayonnaise. The complaint alleges it used raw ones.* **SAN DIEGO, Calif. — August \[\_\_\], 2026** — Whitney Hight and her husband, Casey Hight, of Ramona, California, today filed suit in San Diego County Superior Court against Ramona Family Naturals, Inc., which operates Ramona Family Naturals Market at 325 6th Street, and against Eben-Haezer’s Happy Hens, the Ramona egg ranch that supplied the raw shell eggs used in the Market’s house-made mayonnaise. The Hights are represented by [Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm](https://marlerclark.com), and by Frederic L. Gordon of San Diego. On June 25, 2026, Whitney Hight bought Ramona Red chicken salad at the Market’s deli counter and ate it at home. Two days later she began vomiting and developed severe abdominal pain. By June 28 she had uncontrollable diarrhea, fever, chills, dizziness and dehydration, and those symptoms continued essentially without relief for about ten days. At the worst of it she had diarrhea more than twenty times a day, and a sip of water or a bite of banana brought on cramping and more diarrhea. Her fever reached 103 degrees at home. She could not stand without becoming dizzy or walk without help. Urgent care gave her intravenous fluids on June 30 and told her she probably had a bad bug. She did not improve. On July 2 her husband drove her to the emergency department at Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, where she was found to be severely dehydrated with dangerously low potassium. Imaging showed colitis and inflammation involving her liver, and the staff discussed admitting her. A stool specimen collected that day came back positive for *Salmonella* on July 3. The Fourth of July is the Hight family’s holiday. That day, Whitney Hight was too ill to get out of bed and missed watching her oldest son march in the Ramona parade. She returned to work on July 13, still symptomatic, because the household could not absorb any more lost income. On July 17, a County investigator asked whether she had shopped at Ramona Family Naturals. She said yes, and volunteered — without being prompted with any product — that she had eaten the Ramona Red chicken salad. The County of San Diego [announced the outbreak on July 28, 2026](https://www.countynewscenter.com/salmonella-outbreak-linked-to-ramona-deli/), reporting thirteen confirmed and probable cases with onsets going back to June 21 and four people hospitalized, and identifying the suspect food as house-made mayonnaise prepared with raw, unpasteurized eggs and used in the Market’s chicken salads and its Ramona Red Sauce. On the evening of [Friday, August 15](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/08/15/seven-hospitalized-in-salmonella-outbreak/), the County updated the count to twenty-one cases and at least seven hospitalizations, and for the first time named the source of the eggs: Happy Hens. The County also reported that additional cases of the same *Salmonella* strain, with no connection to the Market, are under investigation. The complaint alleges that the Market’s use of raw shell eggs in mayonnaise violated California law outright. Health and Safety Code [section 114012](https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/health-and-safety-code/hsc-sect-114012.html) provides that pasteurized eggs or pasteurized egg products *shall* be substituted for raw shell eggs in the preparation of foods that are not thoroughly cooked, and it names mayonnaise expressly. The only lawful route around that requirement is a written variance issued by the health department. The complaint alleges on information and belief that no variance was ever issued to Ramona Family Naturals and that the Market operated under no approved food safety plan permitting the practice. A violation of the California Retail Food Code is a misdemeanor. As to the egg ranch, the complaint alleges that Happy Hens holds itself out as running a flock of roughly fourteen thousand laying hens producing about twelve thousand eggs a day — more than four times the three-thousand-hen threshold at which both the federal Egg Safety Rule, 21 C.F.R. Part 118, and [California’s shell egg regulation, 3 C.C.R. section 1350](https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/california/3-CCR-1350), require a written *Salmonella* Enteritidis prevention program with layer-house environmental monitoring, egg testing when the environment tests positive, and diversion of those eggs to pasteurization instead of the retail case. “California does not leave this to judgment. The statute names mayonnaise. It says pasteurized eggs *shall* be substituted, and the only way out is a variance in writing from the health department. A deli that builds house-made mayonnaise on raw shell eggs and then puts it in chicken salad and bottles the sauce for sale is not cutting a corner on a technicality — it is doing the one thing the law tells it not to do,” said food safety attorney William Marler, managing partner of Marler Clark. “There is no kill step in a raw egg. *Salmonella* Enteritidis gets inside the egg before the shell forms, so the egg looks clean, candles clean and washes clean, and it is still contaminated. Everyone in this business has known that for thirty-five years. That is exactly why the rule exists, and why the answer at the farm is a prevention program and the answer at the deli is pasteurized eggs,” Marler said. “What concerns me most is what has not happened. There has been no recall, no published list of the stores and restaurants that received these eggs, and the County itself says the same strain is now turning up in people who never set foot in that market. Those eggs went to customers in three counties. Families deserve to know whether the eggs in their refrigerator came from this ranch,” Marler said. The complaint pleads five causes of action — strict product liability, breach of express and implied warranties, negligence, negligence per se, and loss of consortium on behalf of Casey Hight — and demands a jury trial. It is filed as an unlimited civil case. The Hights seek compensation for past and future medical expenses, lost income and lost commissions, pain and suffering, and emotional distress. Whitney Hight has been unable to schedule follow-up imaging to learn whether the colitis and liver inflammation have resolved. The case is *Hight v. Ramona Family Naturals, Inc. and Eben-Haezer’s Happy Hens*, Superior Court of California, County of San Diego, Case No. \[\_\_\_\_\]. Plaintiffs are represented by Frederic L. Gordon (SBN 98994) of San Diego and by William D. Marler of Marler Clark, Inc., PS, whose *pro hac vice* application is forthcoming. **About Marler Clark** Marler Clark, *The Food Safety Law Firm*, is the nation’s leading law firm representing victims of foodborne illness. The firm has represented thousands of individuals in claims against food companies whose contaminated products have caused illness and death, and has recovered over $900 million for clients. William Marler began representing foodborne illness victims in 1993, when he represented Brianne Kiner, the most seriously injured survivor of the Jack in the Box *E. coli* O157:H7 outbreak. He has since litigated cases involving nearly every major foodborne pathogen. Marler Clark also publishes [Food Safety News](https://www.foodsafetynews.com), a daily online news source covering food safety, and maintains a network of pathogen-specific consumer information websites. **Media Contact** William D. 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