News, Family Sues Restaurant After Son Eats Pancakes, Dies, TEENAGER HAD A SEVERE ALLERGY TO DAIRY

[ChrisFromChicago]

Originally Posted by Adhom

If they win this lawsuit, I would advise all restaurants to never serve people with such allergies in the future. It's just not worth the risk.

Good luck with that.

Seems to me, and i'm now lawyer, you can't discriminate against people with disabilities like that.

Originally Posted by Adhom

If they win this lawsuit, I would advise all restaurants to never serve people with such allergies in the future. It's just not worth the risk.

Originally Posted by Adhom

Although in some ways, I can understand why the family HAD to sue the restaurant. From a psychological standpoint, it's too much responsibility for the parents to bear if they had to concede that their irresponsibility had caused their son's death.

1 - what caused the kids death is, as far as I know, unclear. This is the first hurdle of the lawsuit. what if it wasn't the pancakes (what if it was syrup? etc)

2 - if a restaurant agrees to do something (clean grill, not use dairy, etc) and it mistakenly does it. . .that could be a reason to go after restaurant.

3 - parents have a lot to be blamed about here though. Eating without epipen. not calling 9/11 right away etc.


Personally - I would only fine against the restaurant IF they violated the agreement they made with the family.

[JohnnyMack]

I have empathy for the family BUT ... WHY would you take your child with SERIOUS food allergies to a public restaurant where the ingredients of the menu items can NOT be guaranteed AND without his emergency EpiPen..

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by PedroMartinez

Quite a lot was lacking in that story.

Was the grill not "decontaminated" enough? Was milk accidentally put in the batter? Was the wrong order delivered?

For most scenarios I can guess about, if I were on the jury, it would take extreme negligence or a willful act for me to award the family anything.

I agree. When someone has severe allergies, you don't order anything that could possibly contain the allergen. Pancakes are routinely made with milk and it's too easy to mix up the batters or not realize that the one you add water too actually has milk solids in the dry mix. There is no way I would let my child order pancakes in a restaurant if he had a severe allergy to milk products. They are used too much in restaurant cooking.