Woman says restaurant's toilet paper dispenser broke her hand, may sue

[The Northerner]

DETROIT (AP) - A Michigan woman whose hand was broken while she was reaching for toilet paper can sue a restaurant over her injury.

The case is dividing the Michigan Supreme Court. The court's liberal majority says a jury should decide whether the dispenser created an unreasonable risk of harm at Texas Roadhouse in Taylor.

The court's three conservative justices say there should be no liability for ordinary accidents.

Sheri Schooley says it's a "bizarre story." She says the cover on the dispenser fell on her right hand, breaking it.

The 58-year-old South Rockwood woman says she can't work as an administrative assistant because she can't type. Schooley also says her bowling average dropped by 40 pins after she was forced to switch hands.

A lower court refused to dismiss the lawsuit.

Source: http://www.ksdk.com/news/world/story.aspx?storyid=231473&catid=28

[rfranklin]

1. Is there building code for toilet paper dispensers?

If it meets the code, no lawsuit. If not, enrich the lawyers.

[TwilightGardener]

2. The only way this makes sense to me is if her hand was on the floor

and the dispenser was made of an anvil.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. Bush V. Tore?

:hide:

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

4. Stupid lawsuit.

Obviously thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people use Roadhouse's bathrooms every year without managing to break their hands. I would have to say that unless the dispenser was non-standard or entirely unservicable that the Michigan woman deserves no compensation for being extraordinarily stupid.

[TexasObserver]

12. It's a perfectly normal lawsuit.

The fact that 10,000 people use a product without it failing is not evidence that such product did not fail on the occasion in question.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

13. How does a "failed" TP dispenser break someones hand?

I mean seriously?!? We're not talking about a drill press or blender here. Given proper usage, how can a TP dispenser break your hand. It's got extremely low potential energy and the only moving part is the TP. It's a stick holding a roll of paper covered with a plastic theft-guard. I can't see a TP dispenser failure, even catastrophic (if possible), being a danger anything larger than a hamster.

More people probably break their hands jerking-off to Playboy then grabbing a piece of TP.

[immoderate]

15. I'll speculate.

A dispenser, some of which are massive, was poorly mounted and pivoted around some anchor point and squashed her hand against some fixture. So that's my guess. Is there a pool? :)

The fact that this never hardly ever happens, is not evidence of negligence or poor maintenance in this case.

Without examining the "crime scene" it's hard to guess what happened.

--imm

[TexasObserver]

20. As I said, some are constructed so they could.

The problem is you're not considering all the possibilities.

Are you telling me you've never seen one of those huge, multi-level, multi-rolls of tissue dispensers seen in high volume rest rooms? They're metal. They're heavy duty. They have hinged parts and moving parts.

http://www.archiexpo.com/architecture-design-manufacturer/tissue-holder-2658.html

http://www.toiletpaperworld.com/category.aspx?categoryID=6639&categoryLevel=2

http://www.vandalstop.com/index.php

[Luciferous]

5. How the hell do you break your hand on a toilet paper dispenser?!

Sounds pretty fishy to me...

[charlie]

6. Or eat dinner with a broken hand?

Lotta strange details in this one:

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. Her complaint alleges that defendant was negligent in failing to maintain the premises in a manner fit for intended use; failing to warn plaintiff of the danger posed by the defective dispenser; and failing to adequately inspect the premises for dangerous conditions.

https://www.lexisone.com/lx1/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=OCLGetCaseDetail&format=FULL&sourceID=bcehb&searchTerm=hZKc.cCib.cSIQ.eaaY&searchFlag=y&l1loc=FCLOW

[tjwash]

18. That's a pretty hefty piece of steel on a commercial TP dispenser...

You saying that if that that hinged piece of sheet metal didn't slam your hand between it and the wooden wall, that wouldn't cause a little pain?

[charlie]

19. If it opened with explosive bolts, yeah

I don't know if her plastic dispenser had them, though.

Heck, her story might be 100% stone truth. Stranger things have happened. I hope there's a followup after she's had her day in court.

[closeupready]

7. Where have you been? This happens all the time.

:sarcasm:

[Jamastiene]

8. I'm still miffed that they call that crap they put in those dispensers toilet paper.

They should just call it what it is; "the thinnest slice of paper able to be produced."

In most public restrooms that I have had the misfortune of visiting, what they call toilet paper is really delicate, very thinly sliced tissue paper. You can practically see through that paper and it tears no matter how careful you are when you try to pull it out. It's cheap shit.

She was probably frustrated by having to fight the damn dispenser for a decent amount of "toilet paper" and gave it a good whack with her fist, lol.

[dionysus]

14. yeah, and you end up using 3 times as much, so what's the point of that crap?

[drm604]

9. I haven't seen the dispenser

or heard the details of what exactly happened here. It does sound strange but I'm going to buck the trend of comments here and say that this sounds like something a jury should decide.

If it's as ridiculous as we all think then a jury can say so. But shouldn't a group of her peers decide that rather than a group of judges?

[RockaFowler]

10. Why did she wait a year??

I mean if it happened last week I could understand. But she waited a year to file a lawsuit.

Oh yeah and what's with the info in this article

"The court's liberal majority"

What does that have to do with the case??

[TexasObserver]

11. Garden variety lawsuit for which there may be liability.

Commercial establishment have restrooms for their patrons as part of their marketing strategy. They owe a duty of care to their patrons. This duty extends to making the bathroom facilities safe.

There are dispensers of various types which could have the upper part swing down and break a bone in a hand. It might be a frail bone, but perhaps this 58 year old woman has frail bones.

There's nothing unusual about this case or objectionable. It's a negligence case.

Contrary to what some may believe, it can be a winner. If you can break your hand getting toilet paper, something is amiss.

[Wednesdays]

16. Quit making sense on a thread like this

Get with the program...libruls just wanna push frivolous lawsuits against those poor, beleaguered corporations. I mean, what's next, suing McDonald's because their coffee's too hot? :eyes:

[TexasObserver]

21. Yep. McDonalds had a coffee burn case every five days for years.

They KNEW they were serving scalding coffee in cups that lost their tensile strength, and they knew people were getting burned. They admitted it. That is why they got hit for punitives, even though they never paid them. That case is a perfect example of how the business industry takes a story of outrage and recovery and makes it into a tale of consumer greed and ridiculous outcomes. They fabricate it.

The elderly woman in the McDonald's case suffered burns to her genitals, which burns required skin grafts. She wasn't driving.

Her damages were real, and she had to use very expensive experts to prove her case.

[tjwash]

17. Yes...if I broke my hand in a restaurant, because of their shoddy maintenance I'd sue.

I'd also sue if I caught hepatitis from their food, or if a piece of their ceiling fell on my head and split my skull open.

But then...I feel every time that a story like this is put on an internet message board, that I am in a minority. There's an ever-growing bunch of folks that think that we should let businesses just go ahead and run whatever health and safety standards they want, with zero oversight or penalty for breaking them. The old "invisible-hand-of-the-free-market will-sort-it out-eventually" mentality. The same wise bunch that give us such gems of wisdom as eliminating the FAA oversight at airlines, with the impeccable logic that if an airline has enough planes crash, and enough people die, that the people will avoid them and they will eventually go out of business.

The court's three conservative justices say there should be no liability for ordinary accidents.

WTF is an "ordinary accident?" The definition of an accident is something out of the ordinary happening and injuring someone. :wtf: