Minnesota woman hospitalized with sepsis sues Chipotle over salmonella outbreak tied to jalapeño peppers

A Minnesota woman hospitalized with sepsis after eating a Chipotle burrito bowl is suing the restaurant chain, alleging it served salmonella-contaminated jalapeño peppers that triggered a multistate outbreak now linked to more than 200 illnesses.

Kristen Behne filed the lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, seeking more than $75,000 in damages.

According to the complaint, Behne ate a chicken burrito bowl from a Chipotle in Roseville, Minnesota, on June 24. Three days later, she fainted, developed a fever that reached 102 degrees and was hospitalized with sepsis. She was discharged on June 30 but says she has not fully recovered.

Genetic testing tied Behne’s infection to the broader outbreak, according to the lawsuit, and the Minnesota Department of Health classified her case as outbreak-associated on July 1.

Public health officials have connected at least 110 illnesses in Minnesota and 212 nationally to the outbreak, which Chipotle has publicly attributed to a single contaminated lot of jalapeño peppers. The company pulled the jalapeños from its restaurants in early August and replaced them with product from a different grower, saying it acted “out of an abundance of caution” once the outbreak was detected.

The outbreak has since spread beyond Minnesota, with the CDC reporting at least 345 illnesses across 27 states as of Wednesday, including 36 hospitalizations.

The lawsuit argues that Chipotle should have anticipated the risk. It cites the company’s history of foodborne illness incidents, including a 2015 salmonella outbreak in Minnesota that sickened 64 people, and a 2020 case in which Chipotle paid a $25 million criminal fine after outbreaks sickened more than 1,100 people between 2015 and 2018.

“Chipotle told the public it had learned its lesson,” the suit states. “But we now know that it did not.”

Behne’s attorneys say they may later seek punitive damages pending discovery into what Chipotle knew about the risks.