QUESTION
Could I sue a restaurant if they put something in the food that shouldn’t have been there?
Asked on Apr 11th, 2019 on Civil Litigation - Missouri
More details to this question:
My boyfriend and I went to a Mexican restaurant, we were having trouble finding something vegetarian on the menu. We are vegetarian for religious reasons. We told the waiter we're vegetarian and asked if there’s any dishes he’d suggest. He said a couple different things and I asked about the queso. He told us the queso was fine, we ordered it and both ate it. We came back to the restaurant another time and this time we had a different waiter. We also told her we’re vegetarian and asked about meal options and she gave us some suggestions. We asked if we could get the queso again and she told us that the queso has pork in it. Nowhere on the menu did it say that and the waiter before had told us it was fine. Because we are so strictly vegetarian we were very upset, I had to be excused to the restroom and proceeded to vomit over the idea of it all. I am asking if I could sue the place and win as we were given false information which then made us do something against our religion.
1 ANSWER
You can always sue, but I wouldn't. It sounds as if the first waiter made a mistake, (it doesn't seem as if he deliberately hurt you) which resulted in no monetary damages and no long term medical issues. You were upset, but that may not, for various reasons, be compensable, and even if it is, a jury may well think it not worth very much. Moreover, you weren't really upset when you ate the queso, but only later when you found out the mistake. If you want to address this, you may be better off complaining to the management and/or the better business bureaur, local chamber of commerce, etc., or describe the incident on Yelp or other social media sites.
Answered on Apr 12th, 2019 at 7:49 AM