Can a diabetic sue a restaurant for giving them a sugary drink?

I <3 Yoshi: Can a diabetic sue a restaurant for giving them a sugary drink?
Say a diabetic goes into a diabetic episode of high blood sugar because a restaurant gave them regular and not a diet drink as they requested. Can they sue that restaurant for damages?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Jay
Yes. But the plaintiff has to be able to prove that they had a reaction or suffered damages as a result.

Answer by mark
no sugar taste good

Answer by sgoldperson
One drink is NOT going to set off an episode. Also you can tell the difference in taste with almost all diet drinks compared to the regular.

Answer by Mr Bean
I would say yes. However, you have to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the diabetic episode was caused by their negligence. That means they have to admit that:
a. they took the order for a diet drink and
b. they served you a regular drink
In addition to that, you have to prove that no other foods/drinks consumed prior to your restaurant visit contributed to the onset of that episode and that you were not able to make the difference between regular and diet (but the judge would not buy that).
If they deny any wrongdoing, you can still sue them but it would be difficult to win.

Answer by nixdad96
If you were diabetic and didn’t tell the restaurant you were diabetic. No! The restaurant is not obligated to know your health problems. You have to tell them first and make sure other people witnessed that you informed them.

Answer by Newell
Not unless you told the waiter “Look, I am a diabetic, and I am very strange, I react to small amounts of sugar, and I cannot distinguish between sugared and non sugared drinks. If you give me a sugary drink, I might die.”

You would need to put the waiter on notice that this was a matter of life and death.

Answer by ledzep4210
I think it would be hard to prove as you could have eaten something else before the episode.
If you ate poisoned food given to you by the store and died on the spot with witnesses- pretty solid case!

Answer by Artemis Gwen
Not successfully.

Mistakes happen and not every mistaken is a lawsuit. To have a successful lawsuit you would need to prove that the restaurant breached a duty that is recognized by law that was the direct cause of some injury that was actually sustained by the customer.

A diabetic or a person with food allergies cannot sue if a restaurant gives them something toxic to their systems UNLESS the customer specifically tells the restaurant of the medical restrictions and the restaurant employee assures them the food or drink item is safe.

So, under your scenario, the customer would need to tell the waitress that he was diabetic and ask for a diet drink. Then, after tasting the drink, the customer would need to flag the waitress down and tell her that it did not taste like a diet soda and remind her that he was diabetic, and the waitress would need to assure him that the drink was diet (and perhaps decline to get him a fresh drink) before he could have a prayer of having a successful lawsuit. Then, he would need to drink the soda and have a diabetic episode.

Customers are responsible for diligently safeguarding themselves. Restaurants are not hospitals.

Answer by Steffie
You can sue for anything,, however winning such a lawsuit would be very difficult if not impossible in most jurisdictions.

If you were a patient in a hospital and the hospital made that kind of mistake, you would have a good chance of winning against the hospital.

However, most jurisdictions will not place that much liability on a restaurant.

The kind of liability that you are talking about is the kind of liability that is placed on hospitals not restaurants.

If you are at that much risk, you should not be patronizing restaurants in the first place. You should probably go to the hospital and pay the hospital to prepare your meals for you.
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