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[Lord Shonus]

The plantiff sued Disney directly because the owners of the actual restaurant are a much smaller entity that can probably retreat out of the country - a lot of this stuff is foreign investor owned.


Disney's lawyers are weighing in because a process server handed them a piece of paper saying "this guy is demanding six hundred million dollars from you, pay up or fight it in court". So they're fighting it in court.

[femmelf]

Eh, none of us are lawyers, but the point is the details don't matter and the real thing is that someone is trying to pull something.


If you eat at a restaurant, ,you don't expect it to kill you. 


I don't care who owns it or whatever corporate structure or whatever they use, if you are dead that's what matters. This person told them they were deathly allergic to something and they fed that something to her anyhow. She died. That matters and not if they rented the place or whatever. If Disney or whoever had no ties to the place, then they would've said that instead of "you had a trial subscription however many years ago that said something something arbitration." If it really was the wrong place for whatever BS corporate ownership structure reason, then the trial streaming subscription thing wouldn't have mattered at all. It would've been "You're in the wrong place," and not "welll technically however many years ago there was this streaming trial for one month of Disney Plus and technically...." If it wasn't them, then they should've said it like that instead of this BS, which even if I'm wrong is them causing the confusion.


The problem is that you can literally get killed for doing nothing wrong while doing everything right and nobody cares as long as they don't have to. So this can just keep happening to the next person who dies the same way.

[Maximum Spin]

Eh, none of us are lawyers, but the point is the details don't matter and the real thing is that someone is trying to pull something.


If you eat at a restaurant, ,you don't expect it to kill you. 


I don't care who owns it or whatever corporate structure or whatever they use, if you are dead that's what matters. This person told them they were deathly allergic to something and they fed that something to her anyhow. She died. That matters and not if they rented the place or whatever. If Disney or whoever had no ties to the place, then they would've said that instead of "you had a trial subscription however many years ago that said something something arbitration." If it really was the wrong place for whatever BS corporate ownership structure reason, then the trial streaming subscription thing wouldn't have mattered at all. It would've been "You're in the wrong place," and not "welll technically however many years ago there was this streaming trial for one month of Disney Plus and technically...." If it wasn't them, then they should've said it like that instead of this BS, which even if I'm wrong is them causing the confusion.


The problem is that you can literally get killed for doing nothing wrong while doing everything right and nobody cares as long as they don't have to. So this can just keep happening to the next person who dies the same way.

Just because someone dies doesn't mean someone else is to blame, though.

[McTraveller]

Yeah I mean you don't expect a restaurant to kill you, but if you know you have a food allergy and don't carry an epipen or whatever with you, are you negligent?  Because the probability of some restaurant somewhere having some allergen contamination is nonzero.

Even if you don't have a food allergy, you might choke on food (bones or otherwise), you might get a virus from the other patron next to you, you might get in a vehicle accident on the way to the venue...the question is, how do we have a meaningful balance between responsibility here?

It's infeasible to have 100% liability for everything, it would paralyze the economy.  It's abhorrent to have zero liability, because then people would indeed just do the bare minimum, because there are enough individuals who don't understand risk that even the "risky" places would stay in business, because the general public is just not willing to pay more for quality. Consider that today most people are paying for food protection without their explicit knowledge (e.g., through the FDA; people wouldn't willingly pay for food inspectors out-of-pocket, so as a society we decided to take a little bit from everyone to pay for this - and I hope we keep it that way!).

[Mathel]

So there are several questions here.

1. Who was operating that restaurant?
2. What did the person that died order.
3. Did they tell the waiter about the allergy?
4. At which point did the allergen get into stuff they consume?

First is obvious. If a company is to blame, it is the operator of the restaurant, regardless of who owns the place, except for certain cases of point 4.

Second is important, because some dishes can't be made without an allergen. You can't, for example, make sushi without fish.

If three is false, then the operator is not to blame, as they couldn't know about the allergy.

Four is an interesting one. We are assuming here that the person got the allergen in their food. This is highly likely. The staff might have not known. The cook might have not cared. There could have been accidental contamination. The dishes might not have been cleaned properly. All these would put the blame on the restaurant.
But it is also possible that the allergen was consumed in a different form. It could have been in tapwater. In such case, the water services would be to blame. It could have come from the ventilation, in which case whoever installed the ventilation is to blame.
Or it could have been on the food, but gotten there regardless of what the restaurant staff did. Such as through the action of a guest of the restaurant, in which case that guest is to blame.

[Maximum Spin]

2. What did the person that died order.

Second is important, because some dishes can't be made without an allergen. You can't, for example, make sushi without fish.

Another point I'd add to this is that I think it would be irresponsible for someone with a severe food allergy to order a food where it's impossible to tell, at least by a cautious taste, whether an allergen is present, especially if it's usually or commonly included in the dish. After all, even if you tell the staff and they are 100% careful in making your food - someone else could have ordered the same thing a different way and a mix-up could happen. I don't think it would be reasonable to hold a restaurant liable for that, since it's so obviously plausible and yet impossible to prevent. It would be taking an excessive risk on the part of the consumer.

[heydude6]

Another point I'd add to this is that I think it would be irresponsible for someone with a severe food allergy to order a food where it's impossible to tell, at least by a cautious taste, whether an allergen is present, especially if it's usually or commonly included in the dish.

Dude, you can get an allergic reaction from grabbing playing cards if the person holding them happened to have eaten food contaminated with an allergen. You can't detect particulate-cross contamination with the naked eye.

If you go to a restaurant that doesn't serve anything with nuts in it, you can still get an allergic reaction if the chef decided to bring in a peanut-butter sandwich from the outside on his lunch break. What's more important than the menu is whether the staff have an allergy-aware culture. That includes things like washing hands, not-bringing in allergen containing foods from the outside, taking people's allergies seriously rather than assuming that they're just doing it as part of a health trend (eg. Gluten-free), etc.

And all of that ignores the fact that most restaurants have enough sense to tell people with severe allergies whether they are personally up to the challenge of keeping their customer safe. When I order a gluten-free pizza at a chain like Dominos, the staff are kind of enough to tell me that they prepare the pizza in the same kitchen as their regular pizza and that there is a chance of cross-contamination. My Coeliac is not severe so I am willing to take that that risk, I can handle the occasional tummy ache.

If they told that to the Disney lady, she would have probably declined to purchase a meal. She told the restaurant about the severity of her allergies and they told her that it was fine, that they could handle it. They assumed responsibility for that lady's safety and they failed. Failure should have consequences or else nobody would ever bother trying.

[Maximum Spin]

Dude, you can get an allergic reaction from grabbing playing cards if the person holding them happened to have eaten food contaminated with an allergen. You can't detect particulate-cross contamination with the naked eye.

I'm clearly not talking about those cases. I'm talking about cases where a restaurant makes a mistake, not highly attenuated unpredictable situations nobody would ever think were negligence.

[heydude6]

If you go to a restaurant that doesn't serve anything with nuts in it, you can still get an allergic reaction if the chef decided to bring in a peanut-butter sandwich from the outside on his lunch break. What's more important than the menu is whether the staff have an allergy-aware culture. That includes things like washing hands...

That's still a type of mistake. Not a visible one, but it's one we expect restaurants not to make when people ask for allergy accommodations. Otherwise they should just not take their money.

[Maximum Spin]

If you go to a restaurant that doesn't serve anything with nuts in it, you can still get an allergic reaction if the chef decided to bring in a peanut-butter sandwich from the outside on his lunch break. What's more important than the menu is whether the staff have an allergy-aware culture. That includes things like washing hands...

That's still a type of mistake. Not a visible one, but it's one we expect restaurants not to make when people ask for allergy accommodations. Otherwise they should just not take their money.

what does this have to do with whether someone with a tree nut allergy should take the risk of ordering a pesto, though?

[hector13]

If you go to a restaurant that doesn't serve anything with nuts in it, you can still get an allergic reaction if the chef decided to bring in a peanut-butter sandwich from the outside on his lunch break. What's more important than the menu is whether the staff have an allergy-aware culture. That includes things like washing hands...

That's still a type of mistake. Not a visible one, but it's one we expect restaurants not to make when people ask for allergy accommodations. Otherwise they should just not take their money.

what does this have to do with whether someone with a tree nut allergy should take the risk of ordering a pesto, though?

They’re taking a risk by asking someone other than them to prepare their food, sure, but food allergens are common enough that it’s required or recommended training to work in the food industry in a lot of places.

Someone with an allergy should be able to tell any member of staff that works at a restaurant they have an allergy, and that member of staff should be able to tell the customer whether or not that can be accommodated.

[Maximum Spin]

They’re taking a risk by asking someone other than them to prepare their food, sure, but food allergens are common enough that it’s required or recommended training to work in the food industry in a lot of places.

Someone with an allergy should be able to tell any member of staff that works at a restaurant they have an allergy, and that member of staff should be able to tell the customer whether or not that can be accommodated.

I agree, but given that accidents can happen no matter what, I think it would be foolish to choose to make it more likely. And yeah, that also means that I think some people with especially severe issues shouldn't eat food they didn't personally see prepared at all. There's no sense tempting fate. Just because the food system does a very good job doesn't make it any better if you end up the statistic.

And to be clear, I have no idea whether this applies to this Disney-related case at all because I've never even heard of that. I just wanted to add it to Mathel's list.

[Akura]

Today, I noticed that my elbows, at least at the angle I was seeing them at, appear to end in a curved point.

[Rolan7]

for what it's worth, there's extremely good odds that was very, very intentional

I'll never forget seeing a book about Tiananmen square where the library's sticker was directly over the man in front of the tank.

[Robot Parade Leader]

I agree, but given that accidents can happen no matter what, I think it would be foolish to choose to make it more likely. And yeah, that also means that I think some people with especially severe issues shouldn't eat food they didn't personally see prepared at all. There's no sense tempting fate. Just because the food system does a very good job doesn't make it any better if you end up the statistic.

And to be clear, I have no idea whether this applies to this Disney-related case at all because I've never even heard of that. I just wanted to add it to Mathel's list.

... Dude. Did you actually just say people who have severe food allergies should never eat any food they didn't see personally prepared?
People don't personally see cereal being made before they put it in the box and put it in the supermarket either. So, does that mean they can't eat anywhere if they didn't personally cook it or watch every step? Like it just doesn't matter if someone says, "Hey I'm allergic to shellfish so I can't eat anything with shellfish, please make sure there's no shellfish in my food." Replace "shellfish" with whatever they are allergic to. So, they shouldn't eat at any restaurant ever and if they do and they die (like happened here) then they were "tempting fate," no matter how careful they were? Same thing with food you get at a store. Someone somewhere made it and put it into the packaging to get it on the shelf.

I really hope I'm misunderstanding you. Because wow. Just "mistakes," with people dying.... "Tempting fate?" So, the restaurant or food company selling things at the store can just write that off as a "mistake" rather than "negligence?" It's really common to have food allergies dealt with the the food industry.... 

I hesitate to even ask.