The Case Story - A Day at the Vomitorium Caf

It is a beautiful fall weekend. You are on Break Week and enjoying your visit to Tortstown, Ontario.

You are enjoying your vacation sipping wine in the Vomitorium Cafe eating your chicken parmesan when you hear the seven-foot-tall bartender, Peter Pourmaster, say to the staggering, wobbling, and obviously drunken patron, Sidney Wordslur, "I don't know, I think you have had enough, Sid. Maybe I should call you an Uber. Can I do that for you?"

As Sid stumbles and says, "I fink I good...,"a ruckus starts a couple of tables over. You see the Manager Catherine Caustic march over to a table and start yelling, "I told you to never come back, you freeloading, illiterate goof!"

Now everyone's attention turns to Catherine, listening to very word she says. She is so loud, everyone can hear. She seems to want everyone to hear.

"You stinking, lying, manipulative, Yelp parasite..." she yells at a customer as she waves Peter over from the bar.

She tells Peter to grab the man. Socrates Socialmedia, is a local social media/youtube influencer personality. He publishes videos each week on the restaurants and shops he visits in the area. Usually, his reviews are hilarious and hyper-critical. He has upset many area business owners.

Catherine tells Peter to grab Socrates and take him to the back. She shouts, "I told you to never come back to my restaurant!" Peter grabs the small man by the back of his jacket and pulls him from his chair. He starts pulling him to the kitchen door in the back.

Socrates struggles and screams, "I was just giving you another chance to redeem yourself from the disgusting food you fed me last time. I was sick for a week!"

You grab your phone and start snapping pictures and videos of the action. You immediately post them on Insta.

Peter drags Socrates to the kitchen saying," You know you are not welcome here! Maybe we have to teach you a lesson!"

And with that, he pushed him into the kitchen. Peter opened the walk-in freezer door and pushed Socrates inside. He closed the door and told Charlotte Chef, to call the police. "Gladly," said Charlotte listening to Socrates bang on the locked freezer door.

Unfortunately, that day, the restaurant was short staffed and when the dairy products were delivered early that morning, Belinda Busser (who would also fill in as a sous chef when needed) forgot to bring the dairy order in and place it in the cooler. The dairy - key ingredients for many menu items - was allowed to sit in the hot sun from 8 am until nearly 4 pm that day. Belinda put it in the cooler before anyone noticed and didn't tell Charlotte Chef that maybe there might be a risk.

Back to the action - With everyone focused on the commotion, Sidney Wordslur gets up and leaves. Reaching into his pocket and taking out car keys, he says, "I know where I can get a drink!"

Peter is about to stop him but is distracted by a scream. Sidney gets in his car and drives away into busy traffic.

Sitting in the window table, is Old Mrs. Donahue. She screams again and says, "Oh my goodness - There is a snail in my Vomitorium Home Brewed Ginger beer!" She covers her mouth and begins to gag. She holds up the bottle and everyone can see the snail at the bottom.

Hearing the screams and gagging of Mrs.Donahue, Nancy Nauseous screams, "I think I am going to puke!" Then her partner sitting with her, Wilma Weakstomach, begins to wretch and vomits on the floor.

The owner of the restaurant, Billy Brewmaster, is a strange person in many ways. He loves having a restaurant but doesn't like to see the customers, so he stays in the basement most of the time. Billy Brewmaster, brews his own ginger beer and bottles it in the basement. No one knows about his brewing process because he doesn't let anyone down there. People think he has a brew master education, but no one is sure. All they know is that every day there is fresh ginger beer in the refrigerator.

Belinda Busser runs out of the kitchen with a mop and bucket to clean up the mess, but leaves the bucket in the aisle, where you trip over it as you run to the bathroom because you feel like you are going to be sick.

Peter reaches down to help you up, but you are afraid he is going to hurt you. You jump up and yell," Get me out of here!" You run out the door without paying.

When you are finally safe in your car, you immediately start posting pictures of the chaos on your twitter account and you put in your very critical review on yelp telling the story of vomiting vacation at the Vomitorium. You use words like "dump," "filthy," "violent," and "disgusting," even though, until the chaos started, you thought the food was great and the drinks were tasty.

When the action settles and everyone leaves, Billy the owner begins to stress.

Business has not been so good lately. In fact, having just opened up after the Covid19 shutdown, he is three months behind on the mortgage to Brutal Bank Inc. They delivered a Notice of Default to him this morning, telling him they would be exercising all of their rights under the default provisions of the mortgage.

So, while all the chaos was going on above him, Billy was making a list of all the personal property in the restaurant that wasn't a fixture. He was thinking he could sell some stuff and try to put the mortgage in good standing. The freezer was built into the wall, but the fridge was just plugged in. Mixers and meat cutters just sat on the counter, but his pride and joy, the ginger beer brew tanks in the basement weighed thousands of pounds. They were attached to the wall by the gas pipes and bolted to the floor so it wouldn't move. He knew he could sell them for thousands and get by without ginger beer for a while.

Sometimes he just wanted to walk away from it all and move back to his hometown in Bavaria. He could lock the place tonight and just leave...

Answer the questions directly, specifically, and in detailed legal language.

Unintentional Torts - Worth 10 marks

- Name any two unintentional torts in the scenario.

- Describe in detail the elements of each of those torts.

- Describe in detail the facts in the scenario that give rise each element of each tort.

- Describe in detail any defenses to the torts you have named.

- Describe in detail the facts from the scenario that could give rise to any defenses.

- Describe in detail the types of damages that have arisen and the approximate amounts of those damages.