A Steak & Shake Sued Over Hot Sauce

In response to comments about frivolous law suits, tort reform is pretty tricky stuff.

We don't want people to sue for bad reasons, but if a company knows that they can only be sued for X dollars, they can make business decisions based on that...like if they know it will cost us 2X dollars to fix the problem with our product, they might as well let a few people get sick or die because it's more cost effective.

Also...if you are at a hospital and someone cuts off the wrong leg or testicle or something....how can you put a price on that. Or, if they give the wrong drug and you die. Malpractice does cost a lot, but it seems necessary when the stakes are that high. (It also causes excessive intervention, testing, and medical procedures, which is bad.....so I'm not sure how to solve that.)

In some countries, it's much easier to sue someone who sues a corporation to recoup the legal fees of the corporation. What that does is make it impossible for people to sue corporations without putting everything on the line. You know that the corporation will have tons of money to fight the law suit, so it's very risky to sue. If you happen to have a jury that's not diligent enough, you could lose everything even if you are right.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but it's definitely not simple. Somehow people and corporations need to be accountable even for non-criminal negligence. Good judges and well educated citizens definitely helps. (I don't know exactly what well educated means.....but a jury who can understand the law and be impartial is the goal.)

 

I don't think a 60K lawsuit for this is unreasonable.

I was a 'victim' of a such a prank when a couple of my 'buddies' gave me a chicken wing to try. Turned out to be something called "death wings" and the restaurant they got them from actually made their customers sign a waver and among the warning said it can cause blindness. I was in absolute agony for hours sucking on ice cubes!

 

But you didn't know, my understanding is that the people suing did.

 

Minors DON"T understand anything, that's why they wouldn't even be aloud to sign a waver for such a thing at a responsible restaurant.

 

Frivolous lawsuits? Maybe, but every time I read the details, it is the kind of thing that most people would sue over. It is just that the headlines sound so good!

Here in formerly progressive Wisconsin, they have just passed a law to prevent frivolous lawsuits by saying that NO ONE can sue for more than $200,000. And, if you have a lawsuit against a nursing home, you cannot look at the employee records. (The right wing took over the governor's office and state legislature.)

For a major corporation, this amount of money is not even pocket change. Yep, no more frivolous suits, but also extremely few suits where someone has been seriously injured because of a corporation's negligence. If a corporation hurts you in Wisconsin, just suck it up and hope they are nice enough to help you out. And, if mom or grandpa are hurt in a nursing home, tough luck, they were old anyway.

Sorry I sound so cynical, but it is worse in person.

 

I think it is VERY UNREASONABLE!!

Why didnt the parents TELL THE KID HE BETTER NOT HAVE IT? (They just wanted an excuse to extract $$$ when it was THIER FAULT this happend in the first place)

 

the restaurant should not be sued. the restaurant server should be the one to get in trouble. if the owner was the server I could understand but the owner can't control the actions of a stupid employee therefore it should not screw him/her over.