BK Product Liability
Product liability is a complicated and expansive sect of law and society. The role of the consumer is very important in the economic processes and political organization of our environment. As a result of this influence, product liability laws are continually evolving and reaching out into new areas of commerce.
The purpose of this essay is to examine the product liability law case of Byslma v. Burger King Corporation. This essay will document and describe the background and company history and its relation to the product safety issue. The essay will also discuss the legal theories and strategies that the plaintiff used and is using in its current appeal. I will also explore the very complex map of regulatory agencies that are designed to oversee and eventually protect citizens of its subscribers. Lastly this essay will argue for certain recommendations to the company to avoid future problems of a similar nature.
Case Background
On March 29, 2009, the plaintiff, Edward Byslma, a Vancouver, Washington Deputy Sherriff officer, while on duty, drove his marked patrol car through the drive-through of a Burger King restaurant owned by one defendant he was suing and franchised by Burger King Corp., the other defendant of the case. Byslma decided to order lunch and bought a Whopper with cheese and drove away. Something strange and peculiar happened next. Byslma was suspicious of his lunch and for some reason he had, per the complaint, "an uneasy feeling." Byslma before eating his sandwich, pulled into a parking lot down the street, opened the wrapping, lifted the bun, and saw the notorious spit.
There have been many of lawsuits claiming that food was purposely tainted by spit and by sometimes other bodily fluids other than saliva. This case is unique. There are two distinct differences between Officer Bylsma's case and most of the others that are related to food product liability cases. The first distinction is that he had the spit found on the cheeseburger tested for DNA and then had the DNA traced to a specific employee at the restaurant. The second difference is that Officer Bylsma did not taste the burger, so he could not claim any form of physical harm from ingesting it.
Bylsma's claimed that the product is liable for his "emotional distress, including vomiting, nausea, food aversion, and sleeplessness." The question is whether this is sufficient to give him a settlement in his favor. Washington's Product Liability Act which was in enacted in 1981 serves to alter this case in a major way. This state law proclaims "Any manufacturer, packer, distributor, carrier, holder, marketer, or seller of a food or nonalcoholic beverage intended for human consumption, or an association of one or more such entities, shall not be subject to civil liability in an action brought by a private party based on an individual's purchase or consumption of food or nonalcoholic beverages in cases where liability is premised upon the individual's weight gain, obesity, or a health condition associated with the individual's weight gain or obesity and resulting from the individual's long-term purchase or consumption of a food or nonalcoholic beverage.
This law was enacted in 1981 to "provide a single cause of action for 'harm caused by the manufacture, production, making, construction, fabrication, design, formula, preparation, assembly, installation, testing, warnings, instructions, marketing, packaging, storage or labeling of a product.'" It provides for liability on a negligence basis for some defects and provides for strict liability "if the claimant's harm was proximately caused by the fact that the product was not reasonably safe in construction or not reasonably safe because it did not conform to the manufacturer's express warranty or to the implied warranties under" Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code.
Analysis
The Revised Code of Washington (RCW), which document their state laws helps put this argument in perspective. Under RCW 7.72.030(2)(a): "A product is not reasonably safe in construction if, when the product left the control of the manufacturer, the product deviated in some material way from the design specifications or performance standards of the manufacturer, or deviated in some material way from otherwise identical units of the same product line. In this case Byslma's Whopper was tampered with and deviated from a normal Whopper that would have been served.
There is still more to this case than just awarding the plaintiff by serving him a defective burger. As mentioned before some sort of damage must have occurred to make Burger King liable in for something. Baker (2013) explained how this case is still alive, "The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals...
Like other researchers, the CCOHS notes that allergic reactions including inflammation, redness and formation of blisters may only appear after prolonged exposure to possible allergens; for some this may mean exposure to a substance for a few days before symptoms arise, for others exposure throughout a lifetime may result in some minor dermatitis (CCOHS, 10007). Typically, as others have confirmed, exposure is first necessary, then a process referred to as
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