Injured at a Chain Restaurant Whats Next

Injured at a Chain Restaurant: What’s Next?

If you suffer an injury while eating or working at a large chain restaurant, you may wonder what your legal options may be. In certain circumstances, you may be able to collect damages from the chain itself, the franchisee or owner of the individual restaurant.

All businesses, whether corporately or individually owned, have a duty of care to prevent foreseeable harm to their customers and employees. What is foreseeable? Here are some examples.

Foreseeable Harm

An exposed nail sticks out from the wall in a seating booth. A customer cuts her arm on the nail while seated at the booth. This is foreseeable harm, since most reasonable people would think someone could easily cut his or her arm on that nail.

In another example, a customer spills a drink on the floor. Twenty minutes later, another customer walks by, slips and falls on the wet floor. This is foreseeable harm because while the spill was not foreseeable, the restaurant staff and management had plenty of time to notice and correct the slipping hazard.

Unforeseeable Harm

If, in the above example, the slip and fall happens immediately after the spill, that would not be foreseeable harm. One could easily argue that the restaurant did not have time to clean up the spilled drink and prevent the fall. Customers being hurt in a restaurant during an earthquake would be another example of harm that the business or property owner couldn’t reasonably foresee.

Whom Can I Sue?

The law holds the negligent party, that is, the person or company who failed to prevent foreseeable harm, accountable for damages if a customer or employee suffers an injury because of that negligence. Every case is different, and in the case of a chain restaurant, there are additional variables. In some cases, poor corporate policies can lead to accidents, while in other instances it may be the franchise owner or someone else who was negligent.

Working with an experienced personal injury lawyer is the best way to sort out exactly whose carelessness caused your injury.