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 ...
She should file a class action lawsuit against the toilet paper dispenser company (in China?), not the bar with the defective device.
I don’t understand how this caused her long term injury.
If she didn’t have a significant injury the case does not get to the Michigan Supreme Ct unless the laws are prohibitive from persuing a legitimate case....bad laws make bad cases - or vice versa. Or the Ct is crazy as has been for the Michigan republican Supreme Ct.
I’m waiting to read a version of one of those experiences where the hole turns out to be something else and that the main figure in the tale just didn’t see the water closet. Perhaps he gets caught in the act by some irate janitor.
No comment.
She’s lucky she didn’t ask Sheryl Crow for some TP.
Spoken by someone who has obviously never been permanently injured... if I were you, I’d be very careful about how you judge others. Sometimes life can be very cruel, indeed.
Wrong.
She may not have had a permanent injury if she had gone to an emergency room as soon as she realized that she couldn’t even eat her dinner.
Obviously she was trying to use her broken hand for days after the accident instead of going straight to the doctor.
Sounds to me like she’s trying an anterior cashectomy on the restaurant’s bank account.
The new American lottery.
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