Restaurants & Personal Injury Lawsuits

Just like stores and places of employment, restaurants have a duty to ensure that their property is safe for people to visit as “invitees” and employees. This includes dangerous, defective, and hazardous conditions that could cause someone to fall, slip, stumble, trip, or otherwise injure themselves.

Knowledge of Defect, Duty, & Reasonable Care

Once property owners know about a potentially dangerous condition like this, they have a duty to use ordinary care and diligence to keep and maintain an area in a condition that is reasonably safe for its intended uses and free from conditions and defects which would make it dangerous and unsafe to customers or present an unreasonable risk of harm. Exercising reasonable care also arguably includes regularly inspecting their property and engaging in other affirmative acts to ensure that their customers and others are safe when present at the restaurant.

Foreseeability, Unknown Defects, & Warnings

In order to prevail on a personal injury claim like this, the injury involved has to have been foreseeable and occur from a reasonably foreseeable use of the area in which the plaintiff was injured. If a property owner cannot fix a potentially hazardous condition in time to properly protect invitees, they have a duty to warn customers of the dangerous and defective condition. And if the property owner was unaware of the condition, a plaintiff will need to argue that the property owner should and could have known of it, had they exercised reasonable care.

Injuries Caused by Defect(s)

The injured customer’s injuries must also have been caused by these acts of negligence, either by the property owner or their agents/employee/etc. And sometimes these injuries aren’t simply physical, but can also involve mental anguish that lasts – in some cases, permanently. Costs can not only include medical care, but also an inability to work, both in the present and sometimes for an indefinite time in the future.

In addition, those who experience loss because of injury to their loved ones – for example, a spouse – can also be included on such a claim for loss of advice, consortium, companionship, assistance, guidance, support, household services, and personal services.

What About Worker Injuries in Restaurants?

It isn’t just customers who get injured on restaurant property: There are typically spikes in workplace injuries in restaurants during the summers due to new, younger, and often temporary workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, those employed in restaurants between the ages of 16 and 24 years old increased by more than 22 million workers, and many of them haven’t had a lot of job-related training.

As a result, the work-related injuries for this category are high: According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, employees under the age of 18 make up approximately 160,000 work-related injuries and illnesses every summer. Employers arguably have a duty to try and reduce these workers’ chances of getting injured by providing the appropriate training, labeling equipment that is off-limits, and having the proper procedures in place – including established safety standards and rules – to protect them.

 Macon, Georgia Personal Injury Attorneys

If you or a loved one has a question about an injury incurred on someone else’s property, contact our Macon personal injury attorneys at the Law Offices of Buzzell, Welsh & Hill to find out how we can help.

Source:

modernrestaurantmanagement.com/why-is-summer-an-increased-time-for-restaurant-injuries/