AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Talk Belize Chat Area Now, that ruling makes sense....

New Zealand cafe serves dishwashing liquid

New Zealand cafe serves dishwashing liquid


Jun 16, 3:09 PM (ET)


WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - The owner of a New Zealand cafe that mistakenly served dishwashing liquid as mulled wine has been fined for causing emotional harm to two women, court officials said Monday.

Chico's Restaurant Ltd. in the mountain resort of Queenstown on South Island pleaded guilty to a charge of selling food containing extraneous matter - the chemical sodium hydroxide - that caused injury.

Prosecutor Sarah McKenzie told Queenstown District Court that the two women were taken to a hospital after drinking the liquid last July. One victim was a customer who ordered a glass of wine from Queenstown's Old Man Rock Cafe, owned by Chico's Restaurant Ltd.

She spat out the liquid when she experienced a burning sensation on her lips and mouth. A cafe worker offered to test the drink and suffered a similar reaction, the prosecutor said.

Managers at the cafe checked and found that a mulled wine container had been filled with dishwashing detergent.

A judge convicted the restaurant of causing emotional harm to the women and ordered they each be paid $752 in reparations. He also ordered Chico's Restaurant to pay victims' costs totaling $766 and court costs of $772.

Under New Zealand's no-fault accident law, victims do not sue for damages. Instead, treatment costs and income loss are met by the nation's Accident Compensation program.

No fault accident? Soooooo? Taxpayers pay for the Accident Compensation Program? Liberalism run-a-muck. No one is responsible for anything? No wonder there hasnt been lawyer-flight from US to New Zealand.(I'd sure like to go for a year or two)

Sounds like a Million Bucks to me!!! :-)

Doesn't mean they're not at fault or even considered so to be, but just that they don't have to prove fault. A far better system than exists in most countries.

Ontario Canada has been using no fault auto for about 2 decades. Must be working well or they would have trashed it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_insurance

I have no problem with "no fault" if done right but to Rykat's point, from what I have read about New Zealand's Accident Compensation Corporation, it would be a government bureaucracy from hell if implemented in the U.S.