What Is The Basis For Restaurant Personal Injury Liability?
Personal injury cases that arise in restaurants most often relate to slip and fall incidents, chairs that give-way or food poisoning.
All of those topics are otherwise addressed in various blogs on this site.
What Is The Liability For A Wet Floor In A Restaurant?
In a case where the plaintiff was injured as a result of a wet floor in the restaurant, that may be referred to as an “inherent danger”-type of case. That is, there is an inherent danger to the entrance floor at a restaurant getting wet for a number of reasons. It may be due to weather. It may be due to the spill of a takeout drink. In these inherent danger-type cases, the plaintiff does not have to prove how long the floor was wet or how it got wet. You simply have to prove an unreasonably dangerous condition. Memco Stores v. Yeatman, 232 Va. 50 (1986); Austin v. Shoney’s, 254 Va. 134 (1997)
In Memco, a plant had been placed near a furniture display. A leaf fell on the floor. That was an example of where affirmative conduct by the store owner made the area unsafe. Notice was imputed to the owner that the danger is reasonably foreseeable.
Is There A Duty to Warn and Duty to Inspect?
Another theory in these types of cases is a failure to warn. That is, if the property owner should have known the floor was wet or would soon become wet, then they should have placed some sort of a warning. Ashby v. Faison, 247 Va. 166, 170 (1994)
There may also be a basis for a failure to inspect. That is, if the wet condition has existed long enough that a reasonable inspection would have detected it, that may be negligence. A reasonable owner would have dried off the wet area.
Are Chairs A Source Of Liabilty In A Restaurant?
Sometimes the equipment in a restaurant may be faulty. It may be defective. A restaurant chair may collapse. You may be able to find the chairs’ specifications on a website known as webrestaurant.com.
The chair manufacturer typically advises how often to replace screws and how often to otherwise inspect the chair. That may be the basis for your liability claim.
What Are the Theories of Liability for Food Poisoning in a Restaurant?
Food poisoning is frequently seen with certain types of food. Salmonella poisoning is quite common. Cheeses may likewise be a source of food poisoning. Listeria and other bacteria can survive in cheese sometimes for up to 60 days.
The legal theories to proceed on may be a breach of warrantee. An alternative theory is a negligence theory. That negligence may exist in the storage, preparing or cooking of the food.
All of those theories need to be looked at.
Call, or contact us for a free consult. Also for more info on restaurant personal injury see Wikipedia pages. Also see the posts on this site:
duty issues.
food poisoning cases.
