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I asked because back in middle school a school/classmate stole and ate cookies from my backpack, it turned out all right, but I was wondering what if this did not. Say, they had a reaction to my cookies...could they successfully sue me?

Now, I assume if this in a supposed allergy free school or workplace then yes they would, but I mean like say a peanut allergic person steals some food from a classmate or coworker in an average school or workplace that had 'hidden' peanut product in it. They get really sick or even die.

Would the 'victim' or their family in the above case be successful in suing the owner(or school/workplace) or having the owner get arrested.

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If you have no reason to expect that someone with an allergy will steal your cookies, I don't think you could be liable. The thief took it on themselves to steal the cookies, so they did so at their own risk. And if the cookies were labeled, so they could know that they contain peanuts, they can easily avoid eating them.

However, if the classmate habitually steals your cookies, and you deliberately bring cookies that you know they're allergic to, without labeling them, this might be considered reckless behavior. In this case, you may be liable for any illness that results.

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The question would be if this is normal food or if it has been tampered with. If you have been eating chocolate chip cookies all year because you like them, and an unfortunate thief has a chocolate allergy, that’s his own fault.

If you eat cookies without chocolate chip all year, you suspect X with a bad chocolate allergy of stealing your cookies, and buy chocolate chip cookies, making him badly ill, thats a problem for you. Even though he is a thief, that doesn’t give you the right to hurt him badly.

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    I think your tampering example doesn't work as written. If I have almond cookies in my backpack every day of the year but just today I have peanut cookies and just today a thief with peanut allergies steals them, that is still the thiefs problem. If I put the peanut cookies in a bag that says almond cookies on them, then I might have a problem if they are stolen but I need to actively do something to make the food appear different from what it actually is to trigger any tampering. Just changing my habits is not tampering.
    – quarague
    Commented Nov 4 at 9:05
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    @quarague: Intent likely matters here. Why did you choose to bring peanut cookies? If it was simply because you like them, that's one thing. But if you did it with the intent that a thief should be made ill, that's something else.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Nov 4 at 14:18

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