Yes, and I’m saying Chipotle would just pay those bills. They’ll definitely lose going to court on that. It’s the idea of them being sued for pain and suffering.
Before I say anything else, at this point I have no idea if Chipotle can was negligent here. The problem with Norovirus is that it’s difficult to prevent even when using great care. If Chipotle wasn’t following food health regulations they are in deep trouble and deserving what they get. If they were following code and this outbreak still occurred then the company could go under from the cost of the lawsuits for something they were unable to prevent.
I don’t know; if I had spent several days in the hospital and gone into kidney failure due to someone else’s negligence in pursuit of greater profits, I might want a bit more than just my medical expenses and possibly lost wages. Not millions, you understand, but enough to send a message.
So, suppose i buy and eat a garbage burrito at my local Chipotles. next day, i get sick and vomit-I am sure that poor food handling was the cause-can i file a lawsuit and expect a big payoff?
There certainly are people who will file a bogus claim just to try to get money. Ask General Motors. Ken Feinberg (the guy they hired to manage the ignition switch compensation fund) received thousands of claims. Even after accepting some rather dubious claims (including ones where the driver was drunk when they crashed), he still ended up throwing out over 90% of the claims as being without merit.
So yeah, if you shout “Money!” you should definitely expect greedy bastards to come crawling out of the woodwork.
ETA: I remember getting sick after eating at Chipotle, but that was years ago. I suspect this is a problem of long standing for them.
Wise or not, tort liability is really the only thing that enforces sanitary laws and good governance. Most government regulators, however well-meaning, are simply too small and too heavily influenced by regulatory capture to fully enforce safety, sanitary or other public protection measures.
Overtime and minimum wage laws are “enforced” largely by wage and hour lawsuits, not by direct action by the Department of Labor. Environmental regulations are most frequently enforced by private litigation brought be environmental groups and even individuals, not the EPA.
The simple fact is that Chipotle grew too fast for its food sourcing processes. Relying as much as possible on local family farms while opening over 1,000 restaurants in the past 6 years almost guarantees problems with quality and standardization.
Above is a presentation by the Director of Quality Assurance and Food Safety at Chipotle where they explain their outsourcing strategies and the problems they’ve had with it. I do note that, in the slide that lists “Food Safety” as a concern, “Food Safety” is not mentioned at all by the speaker. If I were of a conspiracy mindset, I would then use this as proof that the head of their food safety department @ Chipotle wasn’t concerned about food safety at all.
Actually, I think I understand you and that I think that you understand me. And I think we both agree that in today’s world fear of class action lawsuit or social media viral “justice” is about the only thing holding corporate feet to the fire.
Where we *might *differ is whether we think that’s as good as it can ever be vs. whether we as a society can / should develop other means of achieving corporate responsibility and corporate membership in civil society.
My complaint was with the other fellow who it seemed to me was asserting that I believe all lawsuits against corporations are evil, lawyers are ambulance chasers (his words not mine) and that outlawing “frivolous” things like people suing when injured would be a Good Thing. All of which is about the diametric opposite of what I believe.
I certainly could have misinterpreted him. His comments, though clearly hostile, were rather cryptic on the details.
I think we should, but I don’t think we’ll be able to for quite some time, and it will likely take some more disasters for it to happen, much like how it took a few ecological disasters to create the EPA.
