I broke my front tooth, about a third broke off, should the restaurant be held responsible?

Question

a few days ago my husband, my mom and myself ate at a wonderful italian restaurant. then we brought home some pastries. we've had pastry from their bakery before, it's fantastic! today i was eating a piece of tiramisu and bit into a hard chunk of chocolate. it broke a third of my front tooth off! tiramisu is a soft dessert there is no chunks of chocolate in this usually. we've had their tiramisu before and there were no chocolate chunks it in before. this sucks! my husband took a picture of the chocolate chunk and of my broken tooth.

i called the restaurant and explained what had happened. a women started yelling "there's no chocolate in the tiramisu, we've been doing this 19 yrs!" i told her i know that it usually doesn't have chocolate in it, i've had it there before, but that this one did have it. she says "no no no." i told her i was not calling to argue but to inform. she told me to call back tomorrow.

Answer 1

It is very unfortunate that you broke your tooth, and the restaurant did make a mistake, but it comes down to your word against theirs.

You never know though.  There was the woman who sued McDonald's because the coffee was too hot when she spilled it on herself, and then the dude robbing someone's house who fell through the roof and sued the owners!

Answer 2

You really don't have a case.  Usually what happens when a tooth suddenly breaks is this was the result of a crack which ocurred some time before and weakened the tooth.  Things like chewing on ice cubes can cause stress fractures in teeth, and while they might not break right away, what always seems to happen is they break when you bite into something soft, like a marshmallow.  

When your tooth broke while eating the stuff you got from the restaurant, the liklihood is that it was not the thing you ate from the retaurant that actually broke the tooth - it was already broken - the tooth just happened to fall apart at that time.  A more plausible explanation is that some time before, weeks or even months, you somehow hit your tooth with something which caused a crack, but at the time you thought nothing of it.  From that point on it was just a matter of time before it broke off.

I've had a few teeth break and it was always when eating something soft.

Answer 3

If you'd have done this in the restaurant you'd have a good case. As you did it at home probably not.

Answer 4

I know the feeling, I lost an entire tooth via a BLT that had a stone in it (off the lettuce).  Unfortunately, you needed to address it right there in the restaurant and fill out in incident form.  At this point it's impossible to prove and it's your word against theirs.  My little trip to the dentist was a total of $350.  Most expensive BLT I ever had....  Sorry to hear it happened to you as well.  Good luck

Answer 5

The restaurant is responsible but it's going to be very hard to prove it.

Answer 6

I think that technically the restaurant could be held responsible, but the real question is do you want to hold them responsible.

Answer 7

I don't think you have a case.

Even if it had happened in the restraunt you would also have to prove there was nothing wrong with the tooth to begin with.   A healthy tooth shouldn't have broken on that.

Answer 8

If you ate it in the resturaunt then yes.

But the fact that you took it home deems you responsible.

Answer 9

um... no cause may-b the chocolate got in the pastry on accident and then again its not ther fault the chocolate went bad either!!! the laddie shouldn't hav yelled at u though either if she ever wants u 2 come back!!!

Answer 10

You do not have a case.