After you suffer an injury while eating at a restaurant, you may be unsure whether you have a personal injury case. We will explain some of the most common situations that our restaurant accident attorneys in Allen, Texas see that result in potential premises liability claims.

Burns

When eating at a restaurant, a server may occasionally give you a dish and tell you to “watch out,” because the plate is extremely hot. Unfortunately, a hot plate is not the only potential area where you could receive exposure to burns as a restaurant patron.

• Buffet trays: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends keeping food at 140 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter to limit the growth of bacteria. In a self-serve buffet style of restaurant, hot trays and warmers will keep the food temperature high. However, if the tray’s insulation is missing, you could burn yourself on it.
• Scalding: A restaurant serving hot liquids or food could leave you exposed to a scald burn if the steam from the hot item strikes you in the face or elsewhere on your body.
• Fire: Some restaurants use open flames around customers. If the restaurant employees cannot contain these flames or if fuel spills near where you are sitting, this could leave you with significant burns.

According to Merck Manual, severe burns can lead to skin loss and the need for expensive intensive medical care.

Falls

At a restaurant, servers may drop food or liquids, leading to slippery locations on the floor. If the employees do not clean up these spills immediately, you could slip and fall, potentially leading to a severe head injury or broken bones. Dangerous spills are especially common around self-serve drink stations with ice.

Along those same lines, small restaurants may stack boxes or leave cleaning supplies in a common walkway near a bathroom. These areas often have poor lighting as well. Should you trip over items left on the floor, you could fall and suffer significant injuries.

Struck by Objects

As servers bring food to the patrons in the restaurant, they often are carrying huge, heavy trays. It just takes a momentary loss of balance or someone sliding a chair out at the wrong second to cause the server to lose control of the tray, spilling the contents onto you.

In a case like this, you could have burns from hot food, cuts from broken glass and plates, punctures from falling knives, and head injuries from heavy objects striking you. 

The server certainly did not mean to drop the food on your head. But when it happens, this is a potential sign of negligence for the restaurant if the server did not have the proper training or if the restaurant asked the server to carry too many items or too much weight.