The trial in the $10 million wrongful-death lawsuit against Benihana over a hibachi chef’s tossed shrimp that allegedly killed a man ten months later has begun. (Hat-tip: H.G.) Newsday tells of plaintiffs’ attorney Andre Ferenzo depicting a chilling scene: “We’re talking about pieces of cooked food thrown directly at people who are eating dinner in the restaurant!” Ferenzo even understands the dramatic importance of the Rule of Three, as he describes two previous shrimp tosses before the particularly fatal one that he blames for Jerry Colaitis’s death. (Caolaitis actually died of sepsis ten months later, and five months after the neck surgery his family claims was caused by dodging shrimp.) (Ann Givens, “Benihana shrimp toss cited in death”, Jan. 11).
We first reported on the case Nov. 23, 2004.
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A couple of years ago I was on the jury of a case in Georgia with a similar distance between the alleged originating action and the outcome that “forced” the suit. A doctor was rear-ended and in the course of treatment for whiplash was given a drug not known at the time to be addictive. It caused a relapse in his drug addiction and he ended up losing his license and job. He (and the insurance company) were suing the guy that rear-ended him. A number of us on the jury didn’t like the chain of events going that far, the judge explained that from a legal point of view the driver who hit him caused the incident that put him in the place to receive the addictive drug. While you can’t say for certain that the doctor would been given the drug for treatment of something else, the law sees that the driver was responsible for putting the doctor in the place of receiving the drug.
This title conjures up images of badly-dubbed kung fu movies.
“Heh heh heh, Fei Chung, now I will defeat you with my Iron Lawsuit technique!”
Kidding aside, it seems there are some good defense arguments on the proximate causation element. Also, I wonder if part of the defense strategy will be to turn it into a medical malpractice trial – focus the jury’s attention on the physicians’ intervention(s) as the cause of the patient’s death, not flying shrimp.
Howard, you might as well have blamed the guys mother then, for causing him to be born in the first place. Or maybe his employer, (or whomever he was going to see) for causing him to be on that particular road on that particular day. Clearly anyone with a history of addiction has no business driving anywhere, the risk of being rear-ended being what it is…
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I was once the target of a shrimp-tossing chef — scared the crap out of me at the time, but i must admit he made a marvelous catch. So perhaps it was the guys own fault for “dogding” to the extreme, when he was never in any real danger of being hit by something so dangerous as the tail of a small crustacean.
And to tie the two together, i’ve never once heard of a lawsuit for whiplash, caused by a driver who deftly avoided being hit from behind by performing a sudden evasive manuoever. But anything’s possible these days i suppose
Does anyone actually know what the original diagnosis of the plaintiff’s condition was? From the sound of it, one might propose the standard age related normative changes that magically morphed into post-traumatic cervical disc herniation with central canal and neuroforaminal encroachment. What I can guarantee is that there is some allopathic care provider that is more than willing to jump into bed with same trial laweyer that he would be villifying if it was a medical malpractice case. Interesting… the correlation between the chracterization of the trial lawyers when the provider is a profiteer vs. defendant.
Flying shrimp not so fatal after all
Peter Lattman reports that a jury took two hours to reject the claim that dodging a flying shrimp at a Benihana restaurant caused Jerry Colaitis’s death ten months later. Some opponents of liability reform might…