Legal Case Analysis: Choking Incident at Wing Shop in Oakland

Background of the Case

Task:

This examination is a fill-in examination. You are asked to read the Factual Pattern. After you read the Factual Pattern, proceed to the second section of the Examination. The second section of the Examination contains a report. You will note that there are numbers throughout the report. A word or phrase is to be associated with each number in the narrative to make the sentence substantively or meaningfully correct. Utilizing the words listed at the end of the Examination, choose the word or phrase that best fits.

Attended Boston College and played football as an offensive lineman. After a 1 successful college career, he was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys where at that time he met SJSU’s
present defensive line football coach, Jim Jeffcoat, as well as Troy Aikman, a quarterback then playing for the Dallas Cowboys. After a successful career with the Dallas Cowboys, including being selected as an All-Pro football player on three different occasions, Ron was traded to New York where he appeared in the Pro Bowl two additional times and thereafter joined the San Francisco 49ers where he made one more Pro Bowl appearance. Ron ended his career with the Oakland Raiders. While in New York, he purchased a family home which he still owns, but rents to a tenant because he and his family now live in California.

Having retired at the age of 34, but still supporting a wife and five children, Ron was interested in pursuing a new career. The career he chose was in the food industry. While at Dallas, as mentioned, he met Troy Aikman who was a spokesman for a new chicken wing franchise known as “Wing Shop” which sold fried chicken wings along with various sauces. Ron acquired three Wing Shop stores in Alameda County. One store located in Oakland was next to the football stadium and Ron was able to procure a liquor license, enabling the Oakland location to legally sell beer to customers who purchased chicken wings from that particular location.

Wing Shop in Oakland is a location that many New York Giants fans go to prior to any game between the New York Giants and the Oakland Raiders because they know it is owned by Ron. On one Sunday before a New York Giants and Oakland Raiders game, fans from New York were at the Wing Shop. One group of fans consisted of a husband and wife and their young child. Unfortunately, the husband and wife drank too much, and were not supervising their child as well as they otherwise could have been.

The Oakland location of Wing Shop has a child playground and while the parents were eating their chicken wings and enjoying their beers, their child was eating a chicken wing while playing on the play structure. She fell from the structure. When she hit the ground, a chicken wing lodged in her throat, causing her to choke. The child was rushed to the hospital and on the way to the hospital an emergency tracheotomy was performed. A tracheotomy is a procedure whereby an incision or slit is cut in the outside of the throat area and a tube is inserted so that air can get to the lungs. Fortunately, at the hospital the chicken wing was dislodged, and the child had a full recovery, but did undergo the pain
and injury of a tracheotomy.

The child and her family returned to New York, and Ron has learned that they are interested in filing a lawsuit against Ron. The claim was that the child was injured because the chicken wings were too spicy and that caused the girl to choke on the chicken. Ron believes that the chicken got lodged in the child’s throat because the child was eating while playing on the playground equipment and fell, and not because of the condition of the food. In any event, Ron is worried about being sued and needs to know what he should be concerned about. He has asked me. I have decided that the students of the Business 80 class at San Jose State now have acquired enough knowledge to provide some preliminary guidance and have prepared the report outlined below.