Facts: Cornell professor Joan Jacobs Brumberg attended a university fundraiser c

Question

Facts: Cornell professor Joan Jacobs Brumberg attended a university fundraiser catered by Cipriani. During the event, she feasted on fancy appetizers. About 30 minutes later, she felt intense abdominal pain, which did not go away. Weeks later, her doctors removed a 1 1/2-inch piece of wood from her digestive tract. The shard caused internal injuries, which took two surgeries to repair. Brumberg's physician believed that her injuries were the result of eating wood at Cornell's cocktail party. On that day, she had eaten little else and had experienced no pain until the event, where she ate many appetizers, includin doctor supposed that the wood moved through her digestive system for 30 minutes before becoming caught and causing the pain. But when experts compared Brumberg's shard with the wood in Cipriani's toothpicks and skewers, they found that the two were not the same material, eliminating direct evidence of causation. Brumberg sued Cipriani USA, Inc. for negligence. A lower court dismissed her case on a motion for summary judgment, concluding there was not enough proof that Cipriani caused Brumberg's injury. The professor appealed, relying on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. ERAC PLEASE g shrimp on wood skewers. The

Explanation / Answer

res ipsa loquitor: This doctrine simply states that one is presumed to be negligent if he had exclusive control of whatever caused the injury even though there is no specific evidence of an act of negligence, and without negligence the accident would not have happened.

Now, in this case, though, it assumes that he ingested wood while eating at the fund raiser, however, the defence can always argue that he may have eaten something else at some other place.

Now, IRAC:

Issue: Whether the Prof can prevail in court that he got wood inside her body due to the dinner she ate at fundraiser.

Rules: The rules here will related to negligence, doctrine of res ipsa loquitor and relevant food safety as well as consumer protect laws.

Application: It has to be proven that he indeed ate food at fund raiser and the food eaten at fund raiser has cuased the pain and trauma. Hence, it is important for Prof to prove that she has not eaten anything before for several hours and the pain induced due to wood is triggered within 30 minutes of eating food.

Conclusion: Most likely, the case will be dismissed. Its difficult for her to prove that she did not ate anything before or after the event and the pain ingested by wood will start ONLY after 30 minutes. The other party can always argue that the wood may have been ingested in a prior period. Unless solid medical evidence backs her claim, it is difficult to prove.

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