How To Sue A Restaurant For Food Poisoning
Food poisoning does happen, unfortunately. People go out, pay for a nice meal, and the next morning, your life turns into a shambles because you have a case of food poisoning. Today, we’ll educate you on your legal options if this does happen.
To be clear, when we say ‘food poisoning’ we aren’t talking about a situation where someone intentionally introduces a substance into your food to cause you serious harm or to kill you. That’s a Nollywood movie...or attempted murder, and in that situation, you have bigger things to worry about, my friend. I had to help pick out a few steps to take while suing for food poison in an article written by law padi.
Food poisoning refers to a wide variety of food-borne illnesses which can be caused by bacteria, viruses, mould, fungi, parasites, etc. For example, you can get food poisoning in the form of salmonella - a bacterium transmitted in under-cooked poultry. You can also get food poisoning from pesticides on produce that hasn’t been adequately washed. Mild food poisoning can cause discomfort, diarrhoea, and vomiting. Severe food poisoning can cause permanent damage to the organs, and in some cases, even death.
Let’s imagine this happened to you.
Last night, you got dinner at Crunches Royal Food in Asaba (not a real restaurant, any reference to any individual or business is entirely incidental), and you now suffering from food poisoning.
You can sue under law on tort of Negligence.
Negligence is an action in the law of torts. In simple terms, if Person A has a duty of care to Person B, if this duty has been breached and damage has occurred, Person B can sue.
Fast food joint do have a duty of care to all customers that patronizes it. i.e.maintain a safe environment for the storage and preparation of the food. To sue under negligence, you must prove that the fast food actually caused the food poisoning and trust me, it is usually difficult to prove unless you act really really fast. Be very sure the food poisoning is from the source, i.e the restaurant and not other places you may have eaten from. The source of the food must be isolated and identified, and this involves consulting a doctor and running tests.
If you are reading this, then you are probably thinking at this point, writes law padi.
‘This is too much stress, I will have food poisoning, then now be going to Nigerian hospital to be doing yeye test, no point in suing them jare, I will just call them out on social media, maybe leave a comment on a food blog, and never go back to eat there again’.
This is the approach which 99% of people will take.
But... if you are the die hard 1% who is ready to take up this suit, after getting a test ASAP, and the result proves you have food poisoning, then you must prove that you have suffered some form of damage. e.g
medical bills
lost income (if she was unable to work while ill)
out-of-pocket expenses (this would include transport fare to the hospital, phone calls to her doctors, cost of running the tests etc)
pain and suffering, and
emotional distress.
if you were ill after eating the food. if you were not ill, you cant sue for damages unless you prove the above. The restaurant may just get an 'exemplary damages. I.E punishment to the restaurant given by a court order.
If you do not have the time to sue, you could Report the restaurant to the Local Government (LG)
The LG is largely responsible for overseeing restaurants in a location. If you write a complaint to the LG, the LG will send a food inspector to the restaurant to ensure it is following all the appropriate standards.
Report to the State Ministry of Health
Hope we learn't a thing or two. Happy holiday. Don't forget to drop a comment via the comment box below...As all inquiries would be taken seriously if emails are also dropped.
Comments