Posted by Eugene Volokh: Restaurants and Aspirin (and the Like): http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_01_07-2007_01_13.shtml#1168494841
On occasion, I've found myself with a nasty headache in a restaurant; and when I've asked the front desk whether they had any aspirin (or whatever else, but I'll just say aspirin for now) I could have, they've always said no. Now my sense is that, like most employers, they do have some aspirin for their staff, likely in those little individually wrapped packets. It's also probably in their interest to help out with it: If I've got a bad headache, I'm not going to have a less pleasant dinner, and while I probably won't consciously resent them for not helping, I'll be slightly less likely to come back soon (since often one comes back to a restaurant because of memories of recent pleasant dining experiences there). And of course giving me some of the aspirin would cost very little money and time. So why not help out, especially given that they're in a service industry where the presumption (I'd think) is that they should try to help the customer with simple requests that could make him happy? One possible theory, which I recall having heard a couple of times from restaurants, is that they don't want to give out aspirin for fear of product liability should anything bad happen to me. But I don't really see the real liability risk: There's nothing negligent in their giving me something that I could buy over the counter at a gas station -- it's not like they're giving me medical advice. Given that they're not negligent, the only extra risk is strict product liability, but that only arises in the extraordinarily rare circumstance the aspirin was somehow defective; and even in that rare case, it's likely that the payment would come from the manufacturer, not the distributor, with the distributor being on the hook only if the manufacturer is insolvent. So is it that the restaurant just doesn't want the hassle of helping me? That, contrary to my assumption, they don't have aspirin around for the staff? That they fear liability without much foundation, because there's some industry myth about it afoot (or because they just haven't looked into the legal question, and err on the side of caution)? That, contrary to my sense of tort law, they may in fact be legally on the hook if I react badly to the aspirin? Or something else? _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
