Posted on 12/06/2010 12:15:18 PM PST by freespirited
The Michigan Supreme Court has refused to throw out Sheri Schooley's lawsuit against Texas Roadhouse in suburban Detroit. Liberal justices were in the majority in a decision that raises questions about what businesses need to do to protect themselves from liability in strange situations.
Schooley, 58, acknowledged it's a "bizarre story." She and her husband were out for dinner on New Year's Eve 2007 when she visited the restroom.
"I reached and the cover of the toilet paper dispenser fell down on my hand," the South Rockwood woman told The Associated Press on Monday. "It looked like the dispenser was up but it wasn't latched...."
But the pain didn't fade, she said, and her husband had to cut her steak. When Schooley returned to work, she couldn't use a stapler. Diagnosis: broken bone....
Three years later, "I still cannot use the hand. I have no grip," said Schooley, who had to quit her job as an administrative assistant because she couldn't type.
A Wayne County judge and the state appeals court have refused the restaurant's request to dismiss the lawsuit. The Supreme Court has twice followed the lower courts, most recently in an order released Saturday.
There is no evidence that restaurant employees inspected "toilet paper dispensers to see if they were closed," Chief Justice Marilyn Kelly wrote...
The court's three conservative justices said the liberal majority was overreaching. In a biting dissent, Justice Stephen Markman noted that the restroom was checked for wet floors and other obvious problems every 15 to 30 minutes.
Texas Roadhouse "apparently also had a legal duty to inspect for hazards that could not reasonably have been anticipated, such as a toilet paper dispenser opening unexpectedly," Markman wrote sarcastically....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I disagree with all of the posts on this thread. The woman was injured. After looking at the evidence, the court has decided it was legit.
Imagine you were in a restroom and put your hand under the dryer (all you jokers here) and the dryer just fell off and amputated your foot?
Unreal. I suffered a hand injury many years ago... but I didn’t have anyone to sue...I’ve been through the MILL about it but sometimes, weird things can happen that people just can’t explain.
All you sarcastic people need to just humble yourselves and be happy that you haven’t been injured.
What a bunch of crap.
Whenever people try to recreate these weird accident events and act as if they were there, I really want to scream.
Not every accident goes according to the logistics you have figured out in YOUR mind.
Thank you.
eeeeehhhhh.... no...
How high up on the wall was this dispenser?
Our lives were too easy with no-flush toilets, internally pleading for more water to come out, wondering if the auto-soap will work or pump too much, having to hurt our hands waving them under to get the magic towel.
What a joke everything is now.
This is from the ruling:
Plaintiff was a patron of a Texas Roadhouse restaurant owned and operated by defendant, where she alleges that, while she was using the restroom, a plastic toilet-paper dispenser fell open onto her, causing a broken hand. After the incident, she returned to her table and finished her dinner and subsequently returned to the restaurant on several occasions before filing suit nearly a year later.
“I really want to scream.”
Wow you are really taking this personally.
I think she will be fine, a nice cash polstice usually fixes things just right.
Then why in the h*** did she return to the restaurant several times before filing suit? (see post #29)
Well, you know, it took her a bit of time to find the right lawyer.
One of my wife’s co-workers joined her on a business trip to Taiwan. One evening they were partying at a classy restaurant, he in a nice suit, when he needed to visit the men’s room.
He was in shock, that there were no toilets, only a large hole in the floor. But he had to go - badly.
So he takes off his suit jacket, hangs it on the door, then drops his trousers as far as he dared without them being on the floor; then leans back as far as he could, to use the hole in the floor. To help his leaning, he placed his outstretched arms on the door handle and leaned back as far as he could.
With that the door flew open, then broke off its hinges, whilst he fell into the hole in the floor with the door landing on top of him. Yelling for help, finally a waiter came in, helped him up, and tried to clean him off as best as he could.
Passing my wife’s party table, he called it a night, and consoled himself in his hotel room with a nice hot shower.
In port towns, they have foot prints painted on the floor that help western sailors with their technique. Line you feet up on the prints, drop the pants and squat, don’t try to look, it throws the ballance off.
IF this is true—and that’s a big “if”—I’m not that upset about the result. A woman had her hand broken by a piece of equipment at a restaraunt that holds itself out to the public. This isn’t that crazy of a suit.
what the H... is one of our Texas Roadhouses doing up there anyway?
We are rapidly becoming a self-created handicapped nation.
“Our Country won’t go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won’t be any AMERICA because some foreign soldier will invade us and take our women and breed a hardier race!” Chesty Puller
Obviously, women do not use the toe-tap signal like “men” do. They must use the hand-tap, and she got injured.
That’s just Michigan being Michigan. The Employee is never wrong, the Employer is never right, and the Customer is just another victim who is entitled to damages. Lived there for several years, never saw a fired employee lose his unemployment check or a ridiculous customer claim not receive 110% full attention of the bureaucrats in Lansing.
Why anybody would ever want to do business in that state is beyond me. You are looked at simply as a money pot, there to shell out goodies to aggrieved victim groups and union employees.
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