Can a Customer Sue After Getting Injured in a Restaurant?

If you are physically injured in a restaurant, or suffer food poisoning caused by negligent employees, you may have grounds for a personal injury lawsuit.

Injuries can happen at any business, and restaurants are no exception. Restaurant slip and falls cause millions of injuries to employees and guests every year.¹

Many of the millions of cases of foodborne illness reported each year come from food eaten at restaurants.

You have a right to expect compensation if you’ve become ill or injured because of a negligent restaurant. Getting a fair settlement depends on building a strong personal injury claim.

When is a Restaurant Liable for Injuries?

When a restaurant fails to do everything within reason to protect its customers, and someone gets hurt, the restaurant has breached (violated) its duty of care. This is known as negligence, and is often the result of restaurant staff doing something wrong or failing to take basic precautions.

Negligence that leads to a customer’s injury or illness makes the restaurant liable, meaning responsible for paying the customer’s damages.

Damages can include the cost of:

  • Medical bills
  • Out-of-pocket expenses
  • Lost wages
  • Pain and suffering

Restaurants are subject to state, county, and municipal health and safety regulations. When restaurants violate these regulations, the authorities can fine them or shut them down.

A restaurant’s duty of care includes not only following government laws and regulations, but also preventing events that might foreseeably harm customers.

If a restaurant owner uses extra long nails to hang decorations in a high-traffic area, and a customer cuts their arm on an exposed nail, the restaurant owner is likely liable for the person’s injury and treatment. The owner should have foreseen the risk of customer injury from an exposed nail.

Sometimes it gets tricky. If one customer spills a drink on the floor and seconds later another customer slips and falls, the restaurant may not be liable. It’s unreasonable to expect a restaurant manager to have employees following each customer with a mop so the moment a customer spills a drink they can mop it up.

On the other hand, if a drink spills on the floor and it remains there for an hour before a customer slips and falls, the restaurant may be liable. In this case, it’s reasonable for a restaurant manager to inspect the restaurant floor at regular intervals to keep the floors clean and dry.

The injury is even more foreseeable if a customer reported the spilled drink to the manager. If management knew of the spill and neglected to send an employee to clean it up promptly, the restaurant becomes liable.

Building a Strong Personal Injury Claim

Knowing about restaurant liability and negligence is one thing. Proving your claim of negligence is another. You need enough evidence to prove not only that the restaurant was negligent, but also that the negligence was the direct cause of your injury or illness.

Your evidence must show that the cause of your injury:

  1. Was foreseeable by the restaurant owner
  2. Constituted negligence
  3. Directly caused your injury
  4. Resulted in verified damages

It’s up to you to convince the insurance company that the restaurant is to blame for your damages. If you can’t link the restaurant to your injury, your claim will fail.

Don’t take no for an answer. If the restaurant’s insurance company denies your claim, contact a personal injury attorney to discuss your options.

Gathering Evidence to Prove Your Claim

Knowing what to do from the moment you’re injured can help build a stronger insurance claim.

1. Call for help: When you get hurt, don’t feel embarrassed and don’t leave. If you can’t call the manager over, ask a friend or another customer to do it. It’s important for the manager to know immediately about your injury and its cause. If your injury is serious, ask someone to call 911.

If you leave before reporting your injury, it will be difficult to convince anyone that your injury happened at the restaurant.

2. Find witnesses: Witnesses, especially independent eyewitnesses, can make or break your restaurant liability claim. Ask an eyewitness to write down what they saw, and to sign and date the statement.

For example, if you arrive at work minutes after picking up a breakfast burrito, and shortly after eating the burrito you began to vomit violently, ask a coworker to call for help. Ask your witness to write down everything they saw, including the time you ate the burrito and approximately how many minutes later you became ill.

3. Take photographs, video, and audio: Use your cell phone to photograph or video the cause of your injury and the injury itself. If you bit into that Cobb salad and broke your tooth on a small rock, make sure you photograph and video the salad, the rock, and your broken tooth.

4. Take notes: Taking good notes and organizing your paperwork are important for your claim. As soon as possible, write down everything you remember about the circumstances leading up to your injury. Keep track of the names and contact information of the manager, witnesses, and the insurance company.

5. Get medical treatment records: Seek prompt medical attention. Without medical records for your injury or illness, you won’t have a claim. Request copies of your medical records and bills and keep receipts for any out-of-pocket expenses. The total cost of your medical expenses is a big part of calculating your injury compensation.

Common Causes of Restaurant Injuries

Here are the most common types of restaurant-related premises liability claims.

Slip and Falls: Restaurant customers are injured every day by slip and fall accidents. Uneven flooring, poorly maintained parking lots, and snow-covered sidewalks are hazards that lead to slip and fall injuries at any business. Restaurants have an additional high risk of wet floor-related customer injuries caused by spilled food and drinks.

Burn Hazards: When the server says, “Be careful, the plate is hot!” they mean it. Restaurant food is usually served at 120 to 130 degrees and sometimes higher. Hot food or coffee at 140 degrees can give third-degree burns to a customer’s skin in seconds. Even lower-temperature burns are quite painful.

Foreign Objects in Food: Breaking a tooth due to a foreign object in your food is not only painful, it can be embarrassing and result in disfigurement. Depending upon the location and severity of the break, a customer may have to spend thousands of dollars for tooth replacement, porcelain veneers, or other remedial dentistry.

Choking Hazards: Accidental choking is the fourth leading cause of unintentional death in the United States, with food the most common cause of choking in the elderly.

Most of the time, a restaurant wouldn’t be held responsible if a customer choked. However, if you choked on food that wasn’t prepared correctly or that contained a foreign object, you may have a case. Moreover, while restaurants aren’t required to train staff for choking emergencies, they have a general duty to help, like calling 911 for medical assistance.

Puncture Wounds: Cuts and puncture wounds increase during the summer, when customers wear sandals, thin-soled shoes, and even walk barefoot into restaurants. Exposed screws, splintered wood, and broken glass are frequent culprits. Puncture wounds can lead to tetanus, bacterial infections, and scarring.

Dram Shop Violations: Restaurants that serve alcohol are obligated to use good judgment when serving customers. Dram Shop laws in most states hold the restaurant liable if it continues to serve alcohol to a customer who is clearly intoxicated.

If an intoxicated patron punches you in the nose over the team logo on your shirt, or crashes into your car in the parking lot, the restaurant may be responsible for your medical bills or vehicle repairs.

Contaminated Food: Foodborne illness is an all too common restaurant injury. Food poisoning is a catchall phrase for foodborne illnesses caused by many different kinds of bacteria, viruses, and parasites.

More than 48 million people suffer from food poisoning each year, causing 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. The germs that cause most food poisoning in this country include:

  • Salmonella
  • Norovirus
  • Clostridium perfringens
  • Campylobacter
  • Staphylococcus aureus
  • Botulism
  • Escherichia coli
  • Listeria
  • Vibrio

Here’s a detailed chart of foodborne illnesses and germs from the Food and Drug Administration.

Foodborne illnesses may be transmitted to customers by:

  • Improper food handling, such as undercooked poultry
  • Contaminated food, often raw food like seafood, eggs, and meats
  • Person-to-person transmission by restaurant workers who are ill, with poor hand-washing

Filing a Claim With the Insurance Company

If you have recovered from a relatively minor injury and didn’t miss much work, you can probably negotiate a fair insurance settlement on your own.

Calculate a good settlement amount by totaling the cost of your medical bills, out-of-pocket expenses, and lost wages. Add one or two times that amount for your pain and suffering.

Put your demand in writing and send it with copies of your medical bills, witness statements, and other evidence.

Serious injuries, like broken bones or teeth, severe burns, severe food poisoning, or other high-dollar claims should be handled by a personal injury lawyer to get the maximum settlement from the insurance company.

Complicated personal injury cases require an experienced attorney to protect your interests.

Complicated personal injury cases include:

  • Wrongful death claims
  • Accusations of contributory negligence
  • Multiple liable parties, like a vendor who sold recalled meat to the restaurant

There’s too much at stake for you to try and handle a serious injury claim on your own. Most law firms offer a free consultation to the injured person, and will take your case on a contingency fee basis. You only pay the attorney’s fees if they settle your case or win a verdict in court.

Restaurant Injury Claim Questions