As a firm of specialist personal injury lawyers, we’re used to dealing with all varieties of claims for personal injury compensation. We have represented many victims for claims against restaurants and shops for biting down and being injured when a foreign object is found in a food product.
Whilst these sorts of claims aren’t normally common, it’s certainly not unheard of. I remember once finding a huge stone type thing in a tin of tuna I bought – luckily I didn’t bite in to it, but I know of others who haven’t been as lucky as I was in dodging the danger.
So what can you do about it?
There can be a cause of action against a restaurant if you are served food with a foreign object in it, and it is the same for buying a food product from a shop and suffering the same thing. Generally speaking, you can have a better chance of winning the claim in a restaurant because you would (I imagine) call over a member of the front of house staff and probably end up speaking with a manager. You can make a verbal report of it and perhaps the objects origin can be identified.
Maybe it’s a bit of crockery from a chipped bowl, or something dried up from the kitchen. If you make a report there and then, and ensure it’s noted in an Accident Report Form, this can help a lot for when making a claim.
When it comes to food products bought, we do often face difficulties when claiming for them. The thing is, the burden of proof that you are owed compensation is entirely on you as the Claimant. That means you must prove that you have been injured due to negligence. Negligence can be allowing foreign objects to infiltrate in to food product through poor quality control, for example. But how do you prove where it came from and what it is? In restaurants it can be easier as you can make a report there and then, and even if they don’t know where it’s come from, you may still have a good shot at winning.
But if you find a bit of stone in a salad, how on earth do we know where it has come from? For all we know, it could have dropped in there after you opened it up. We’re going to need to convince the other side that it was there when you bought it, and this isn’t easy to do. It’s not that anyone is making any accusations that you’re lying – it’s a simple matter of them wanting proof beyond reasonable doubt that they really are the cause of the incident.
The Supply of Goods and Services Act actually mean that you can hold the seller of the food at fault even if it’s a manufacturing error. They may bounce you off to a manufacturer or producer, which is fine, but the seller can still be liable.
More often than not, they will ask for the foreign object to be sent to them for testing. If I were you, I’d get a lawyer to sort this out as you don’t want it to disappear or anything like that. Keep hold of the foreign object and seek legal advice as soon as possible.
But, as I say, proving negligence is not always easy.
The injuries can be nasty in cases like this – normally involving damaged and lost teeth. As such, it’s definitely worth making a claim for it as you can recover compensation for the pain and suffering caused as well as recover money for expensive dental bills that can commonly run in to thousands of pounds.
