Would you sue?

Absolutely not. My health is worth more than that.

I don’t think I would. Less because the being sick would suck and more because I feel like we are too sue happy and I don’t want to perpetuate that cycle.

No- my health is more important than money.

Also chances are you would not collect your damages since they could go out of business

Um no. Stuff happens. What if you got an incompetent surgeon? What if your immune system was suppressed for some reason, and you couldn’t fight it off?

Money not earned has no value.

You got a buddy working at the restaurant?

No, gross.

lol no im eating at subway and the nacho cheese looks like it could kill me…quickly. so i was thinking to myself, what if this gets me really sick, should i hope it does and sue? or if i knew for a fact it would make me sick would i still eat it? i don’t think i would…but fluther popped up in my mind right away lol

Nope.

of course it’s all just thinking. im not really hoping it makes me sick so that i can sue. it’s just what came to my mind while looking at this cheese

Some of those stomach things you don’t ever fully come back from – you have problems the rest of your life. not worth it.

No. If I were in a situation where the quality of my food caused me to seriously think it would give me food poisoning or a food borne disease, I would certainly not eat it in hopes of winning a future lawsuit. I would choose not to eat the food and would not pay for it, or get my money back if I had pre-paid for it.

Not to mention, if anyone found out that you willingly ate tainted food with the intention of suing them for money (and someone may find out, an efficient lawyer is one who you tell everything to, not to mention hidden recording devices) it could be grounds to have the lawsuit dismissed with prejudice, if not lead to a counter-suit from the food company.

What? First of all, that sounds like fraud. And second of all, health is just about all that is important. I truly can’t imagine a person in his right mind doing such a thing. And if they did, I hope the plot would fail.

After taxes it wouldn’t be enough $$ to cover things that could go wrong if you had to have surgery and there were complications and needed round the clock care, and more surgeries and more complications and a lifetime supply of Depends, and….

@skfinkel – lol wow. u really got mad at that huh? this was supposed to be more of a “would u deal with the sickness to get the money?” question, the entire law/reality/honesty between you and the lawyer was not meant to be taken into consideration. lol. but that’s why fluther is awesome

For a million. Yer I’d go for it.

I find many people fail to take the way the world really works into consideration when making their grand plans :)

@jamjar – lol first one to admit it!! congratulations!! and what would u do with the money may i ask?

@dynamicduo – might be true, but i don’t want you to misunderstand the point of this question. this isn’t really a plan, im not really attempting this. i thought of it as a quick question and asked it right away. there was no planning involved. i will admit though, i did think more people would be willing to do it: taking in mind the economy lol

Nope, although with my weakness for cheese if I didn’t dispose of it right away I might end up eating it by accident.

@Bri L – i wish i had a picture to send you. it’s rough.

@futurelaker88 – no worries, I hear you loud and clearly, I know it was a hypothetical discussion, but that doesn’t exclude logic from coming in :)

It’ll have to take way more money or way more desperation for people to put their lives on the line for a quick paycheck. Food borne illnesses were one of humanity’s biggest causes of death before the bacteria theory and our ability to keep our foods at the proper temperature via refrigeration or freezing. They’re not something to mess around with willingly, even with our medical knowledge.

@dynamicduo – what if it were something else, like, deliberately slipping outside a store and breaking a bone on ice lol jk

@futurelaker88 – Not too sure what I’d spend it on. Probably a new stomach, and then a yacht.

No, that’s fraud! Further, I wouldn’t risk my health for such a thing. Who knows how my body would react to that bug?

No. It’s fraud, and it’s bearing false witness, because if you knew it would make you sick and ate it anyway, you accepted responsibility for it, and so you have no business blaming the restaurant.

I’d wash it down with some Sun Chips at least. If it’s bad then it’s probably gonna taste like shit. I’d consider goin’ for it but $1 mil isn’t really that much nowadays. I’d go for at least $10 mil (after taxes).

And you’re not necessarily going to break a bone by falling outside the store so that’s pretty much out.

Fraud is fraud, no matter how it’s dressed up. The law tends to come down very hard on those who attempt to exploit the law for their personal benefit.

But if you pull it off you’re rich. So you gotta weigh it… rich or jail.
Actually more like “how much money” vs “how long in jail”
Kinda like deciding whether or not to rob a bank.

I’d toss a coin on that one.

Of course you could sue like the thumb-in-the-chili lady did. Of course she went to jail as did her husband and their kids went into foster care and they lost everything they ever owned and most of what they could own in the future…but it was their right to sue.

@galileogirl

But it was proven that she actually put the finger in, and thus, it was fraud. It’s never right to commit fraud, and if you’re caught like she was, then you’ll go to jail.

Personally, no, I wouldn’t eat the food even if I could sue for millions. What if it made me horrifically sick and I died? Would it be worth it then? If I DID survive, I don’t think the money would be enough to cover all the medical bills for life, and it wouldn’t make my pain/suffering get better either.

Knowing you are eating something unwholesome and then suing means you are going into court with ‘unclean hands’ (which probably made the food bad in the 1st place) In that case you would be unable to get a judgement anyway. Similar to fraud.

@galileogirl

If the court could prove that you ate it, knowing that it was unhealthy, just so you could sue, then could you be in trouble for fraud?

I agree that it’s similar to fraud, but yet it’s different. You’re not deliberately faking something to get money, you’re just knowingly putting yourself at risk.

Knowingly putting yourself at risk is neglectful but not fraudulent.
Not illegal just stupid.

It’s along the same line as suing your dealer because he gave you bad drugs. The courts won’t support your wrongdoing by giving you a judgement.

it’s not like that at all. going out to eat cannot be equivocated with buying drugs from a legal standpoint. you would be going out to get food, and the restaurant would be irresponsible bybaerving bad food. it would be their fault for not checking dates or cleaning the food area or whatever but intentionally eating the food would not be fraud (maybe stupid) but not illegal or fraud. the point remains that the restaurant is in the wrong and can therefore be sued.

Yes, but your Q says IF YOU KNEW GUARANTEED that if you ate something at that restaurant it would make you sick, would you eat it and sue? Maybe the law wouldn’t get you if you didn’t run your mouth beforehand, but in essence, that’s fraud, as defined: a deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual. You’re pretending to believe you think the food is OK to eat when you know it isn’t and your purpose is to get sick and sue.

So, no, I wouldn’t do that.

future- The wrongdoing is eating something you know is bad. It makes you complicit

Basically, in court, you could use the ignorance argument. With the exception of Subway, you can’t see your food at most places. Therefor you wouldn’t have seen the cheese and wouldn’t have known it was toxic. You could pull off the court case as long as you could convince the jury that you didn’t see the cheese through the glass… the glass that’s designed for you to be able to see your food through. Not to mention that as long as you aren’t a chef or something then how are you to know when the cheese is bad and not just dried out or something?

No, I wouldn’t eat it. Life is too short to spend it being sick or hanging around with lawyers.

I’m gonna go against the grain here and say SHOW ME THE MONEY!!! I’ll puke it all up into my gold toilet.

@TenaciousDenny – lol. i still dont see how its fraud. the restaurant should not be serving bad food, if i dont get it, someone else will! they are supposed to be on top of the condition of the food they are serving. so if i found out that it was bad SOMEHOW, and decided to eat it, its the same thing as if i didnt find out and eat it…until i was asked if i knew. and if i told the truth that STILL doesnt negate the fact that the restaurant is unsanitary and THEIR food got me sick. even if i didnt get the money, how would i be penalized for this??

sorry that shouldnt have been @TenaciousDenny i was LOLing to him but the rest was to everyone else

@futurelaker88 Psst… you can click Edit this response

lol

@Sakata – Thanks!!! i never noticed that! most of the time im on my phone when i read/post and i dont think the web app version has that button! thats also why i end up misspelling things. the iphones “autocorrect” sometimes doesnt work out for the best :/

If you ended up in court – suppose eating the bad stuff made you lose your memory and you can’t remember that the reason you ate the food was to get the million? Then you couldn’t be proven to be a fraud.

@futurelaker88: It’s fraud because you’re eating food you know to be bad, and pretending that you didn’t know it was bad, so that you could blame the restaurant for your ills.

Your lawsuit against the restaurant is only going to succeed if you lie about not knowing the food was bad. That lie—and the fact that the motivation for lying is profit—is what makes it fraud. If you just wanted to establish that the restaurant was unsanitary, the right thing to do is to call the health department and file a complaint.

@cwilbur – but why would i have to lie? what would make them ask if i knew? if i just ate the food, got sick, and sued, i wouldnt even have to say i knew, or i didnt know. i would just say i got sick after eating the food. what would make someone say “but future, did you by any chance KNOW that the food you were served was going to be tainted?” if i dont say that i DID know OR that i DIDNT know, its not lying.

anyway, besides all these legal issues, the point was not “is this right or wrong, or could you get away with it?” it was just to see who would be willing to eat the food if you KNEW you would get the money?

What’s a good phrase for that? Happens on most threads.

The Fluther Tangent?
The Fluther Skew?
The Fluther Shift?
The Fluther Change?

@Sakata – you nailed it. all of those will do. i notice these a lot too. hows…

“Fluther Digression” AKA “Fligression”

@futurelaker88: you would have to lie, because if you knew the food was bad when you ate it, getting sick would be your fault for having eaten it, not the restaurant’s for having served it to you. The only way you can blame the restaurant is if you don’t know that the food is bad. Once you do, it’s no longer the restaurant’s negligence but your intentional attempt to create a case to sue.

And whether it’s right or wrong is entirely relevant—I wouldn’t do it because it’s fraud and bearing false witness, and my integrity is worth more than money.

@cwilbur – ok, ok, nvm. getting sick would be my fault, but how does that stop it from being the restaurants fault for serving it!?!? EITHER way, whether i knew, or didnt know, does NOTHING to effect that fact that the place isnt sanitary and DID serve me bad food. PLUS, if I dont eat it, someone else will, and they can “rightfully” sue for the same reason just because they didnt know!?!? it would be suing for serving bad food, not for SECRETLY serving bad food. (whether i know or not doesnt change that)

If I knew for a fact that I’d get the $1mil, sure. I’d put it all into a bank account and my daughter could live off the interest for the rest of her life. And I might even be able to afford an operation to make me better.

@futurelaker88: it changes the liability for the restaurant. When you sue, the most you can usually recover is your actual damages. If you are served bad food and don’t eat it, what are your damages? Answer: only the cost of the food, which is unlikely to be above $20, and if you bring it to the attention of the manager, they’ll replace it.

The only way you’re going to make a million on it is if you have serious health problems as a result of eating it—and if you ate it knowing it was bad food, that’s your liability, not the restaurant’s.

If the place is unsanitary and frequently serves bad food, the thing to do is not to sue, but to call the health department. That is what they do; that is their purpose. And they don’t have to commit fraud to accomplish it.

@futurelaker88—I thought I did answer your question. No, I would not do anything that would harm myself for any amount of money. Now, that is said from the point of view of not being starving, not watching my children starve. But I believe that was the gist of your question. And I certainly would not lie about something to get money.

However, would I steal a loaf of bread to feed starving children? That’s another, and perhaps more interesting, question.

@Sakata The question said knowingly ate someting that would make one sick, you said use the ignorance card in court. Of course, that would be a crime, perjury, and one of the charges against chili-thumb lady’s husband.

@futurelaker88 – If you have that sort of mind set, where you will eat something disgusting or that will make you sick in order to get money, doesn’t that mean you should be contestant on “Fear Factor” or some other reality show? That way you can skip the whole lie business, the fraud and the going to court business and just straight eat something that you know will make you puke and rich at the same time.

@Darwin ding ding ding, you are the winner!!!

i’d prefer to not go through a bunch of serious health issues just to get money out of a restaurant.

also, i think (america’s especially) sue-happy tendencies are really repulsive. people will sue for just about anything, even if they could have avoided it/didn’t actually suffer, and i think it’s so so disgustingly greedy.

No, I wouldn’t! But you’re right that it makes a good topic, look at all the answers you already got.