Milk allergy death- should the book be thrown at the staff involved?

[mids2019]

....or if you are minimum wage staff member working in a stressed environment without English as a first language there should be leniency. Doctors are paid for life and death decisions but are Costa staff?

Yes its funny how people say they would never eat food prepared by someone else if they had serious allergies yet anyone could have a fatal response to food poisoning. My friend who is very fit and healthy was in hospital for weeks and will never be fully recovered after really nasty food poisoning from a meal out (at a pricey restaurant!)

we all take risks in life. We all drive on the roads knowing we can't control the actions of other drivers. The point is that anyone who could potentially put someone's life at risk in the course of their job or business should be held to standard of conduct. Costa are making huge profits they can at least accept the responsibilities that go alongside that.

Exactly. I once was ill for 6 weeks after eating some dodgy beef pasta in a restaurant, I lost 1.5 stone and about a third of my hair. But it didn't stop me eating out.

My DD should be able to eat out and trust that staff know enough to use clean utensils for her food and not the knife that just cut a peanut butter sandwich.

@DuckyShincracker
FFS

someone as thick as 2 short planks shouldn't be anywhere near the general public!!

Did you complain to management? If it was a chain, to the HO?

@Secradonugh

yes, they should, it would be much better.

but it wouldn't have made ANY difference, the Barista poured cows milk into the jug, it wasn't a case of contamination!! She knowingly made the drink with cows milk!!

Wow! You'd rather your child have a peanut allergy than dairy. I never considered before that dairy might be harder to manage than peanut/tree nut allergy. But it makes logical sense.

Thread has been illuminating.

My niece has allergy to both dairy and treenuts. I always thought the nut is harder, but then I don't deal with her allergy on a constant basis.

We constantly say that if our DD had to be allergic to anything we're delighted it's peanuts. They're in practically nothing, and it's always taken very seriously.

Milk, egg or something not in the top 14 would be very very difficult.

Genuine question, how can butter be dairy free? Surely it wouldn’t be butter if it were.

I think the language usage adds to the confusion. Soy milk, almond milk and so on are not milk and if there weren’t called this then there would be no confusion as to what is what.

It's far easier to dodge peanuts than dairy. Go round a supermarket and pick up everything you buy and check the ingredients. It's worse in Aldi and Lidl. Whey is a cheap filler and in so much food and almost impossible to avoid.

And don't forget the idiots who think eggs are dairy

Every allergy, no matter how serious the reaction, should be treated as if a worst case scenario. I know people who are lactose intolerant who don't mention it because they're happy to take the risk but equally I know people who aren't and so say they are allergic to dairy. Sitting on the toilet in agony for a few days is to me a serious enough reaction to warrant full avoidance if I were in their shoes.

How soon do you get the symptoms after eating the food? It could be an allergy not an intolerance. You're getting systemic reactions.
Might be wise to go to gp and get it checked out.

Well the noise,distraction etc is exactly why there was a simple procedure in place - show customer allergen book. Which wasn't followed.

FWIW I don't think the barista bears 100% culpability, but she does bear some. In any case, the current hearing is only the inquest. Nobody has been charged with anything yet.

Also @muggart Who told you that 'vast numbers' of unskilled immigrants were being welcomed by the UK...?
Its not the 1980's where people could just swan in from Commonwealth countries. Or pre-Brexit with lots of unskilled workers from Eastern Europe.
You can now only come here legally on a work visa , granted for specific jobs with a high minimum salary. Even the minimum income threshold for spouse visas have been increased to above the median income. The only visa which perhaps could allow seemingly unskilled workers are the health and social care visa.

Illegal immigrants and refugees are a different category but these people certainly aren't welcomed they're treated horribly and not allowed to work until asylum has been granted, this sometimes takes years.

My DD has tree nuts, peanuts, sesame & egg allergies. I would have to agree that the nut / peanut allergies are the most manageable, partly because they are (irrationally) taken the most seriously but mainly because they aren't a core ingredient.

Egg is the worst for us because it's in almost everything (or at least it feels like it is) and every brunch or lunch place has it in abundance, not to mention pastries etc.
Sesame is horrible because it rules out so much bread and asian restaurants are entirely off limits due to sesame oil.

IMO dairy, wheat and egg have the worst impact on quality of life.

Dairy is the most fatal for children but the flip side is many children will outgrow their dairy (and egg) allergies, which isn't the case for nuts. Nuts are more fatal for adults which is probably why they get such a bad rep!

The best places I've eaten out who show some understanding always ask if we need to avoid cross contamination. I think most people with an intolerance don't need to, but those with an allergy, however severe, do.

In my DDs case we have to avoid cross contamination but it won't kill her, which is made even more difficult to explain by the fact that I also have to avoid the foods as I'm breastfeeding her. I just say I have an allergy even though I don't to keep it simple, the actions the restaurant has to take are the same.

I just came across a story on social media regarding a potential wrongful death settlement but Disney does not want to pay out clearly.

It seems the woman who died and her partner made it clear she had allergies and the server assured them it was fine. They did use an epi-pen but sadly died anyway.

She was found to have elevated levels of dairy and nut in her system from what she ate, so I’m not sure what happened. Interesting to see how that goes.

edition.cnn.com/2024/08/14/business/disney-plus-wrongful-death-lawsuit/index.html?Date=20240814&Profile=cnn&utm_content=1723645561&utm_medium=social&utm_source=instagram

From another article on the case I linked to above:

Piccolo is seeking in excess of $50,000 from Disney for mental pain and suffering, funeral expenses, medical expenses and loss of income.
He said his wife was highly allergic to dairy and nuts and the couple chose to eat at the pub because they believed Disney would have proper safeguards in place.
The couple repeatedly asked their server about allergen-free food, and claimed the waiter even went to confirm with the chef.
'The waiter unequivocally assured them that the food would be allergen free,' the lawsuit read.
Tangsuan ordered the following menu items: 'Sure I'm Frittered,' 'Scallop Forest,' 'The Shepherd Went Vegan,' and 'Onion Rings.'
The bottom of the menu available online notes, 'Cross-contamination may occur and thus we CAN NOT GUARANTEE that any dish we prepare will be completely free of gluten/allergens.'
She began having severe difficulty breathing and collapsed to the floor, 911 was called and the caller told the dispatcher Tangsuan had self-administered an epi-pen.

I know it’s different companies, different countries etc but I just wonder if in general - not necessarily this case - there needs to be more of a push to hold businesses responsible for these sort of things so perhaps they’ll train staff better or something? I feel we need to hit them where it hurts so things do improve.

I have a very mild allergy to walnuts but it does cross my mind somethings that allergies can get worse and new ones develop.

In this case though they do have their disclaimer that they can’t guarantee it’ll be allergen free. I can imagine many people with known severe allergies will just stop eating out now tbh

These disclaimers are often part of the problem, because certainly in the UK you can't contract out of liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence

Most fatal reactions don't happen as a result of minute traces of cross contamination but because the actual wrong food is given to someone. It can't be that hard to make sure people are given the right food.

As someone who’s worked in coffee shops and retail, I know customers, and I fully believe that the mother did not communicate correctly the allergy and confused the barista (who is paid minimum wage and treated like crap every day and absolutely should not even have been named as it is NOT their fault)

If I had a child with an allergy that bad, I simply wouldn’t take them to a coffee shop. The idea that this could cause these jobs (which no one wants) to have an actual risk of a PRISON sentence (?) because customers can’t ask for things correctly and take responsibility for their own actions is just insane.

I always thought the disclaimer was meant for minute traces of something, not serving the wrong food entirely! IANAL and happy to be corrected but.
Nut allergies for example can be so severe that entire offices are made nut-free. Of course there can be a separate kitchen area, all the correct procedures etc followed but to what extent can anything be made 100% safe? For example if the restaurant itself serves nuts, surely these people would have an allergic reaction triggered by other customers' orders?
Giving a customer the wrong information, or serving the wrong food on the other hand is clear cut negligence. There should be multiple levels of control to ensure that the order is filled correctly.

What we should really have is a standardised set of procedures by the governing body , and if not followed - lead to court action. If a restaurant has followed everything to the letter , yet still couldn't prevent a reaction how is that their fault? If it was preventable it would've been in the guidelines. Some things are just accidents.

Agreed, and I think the disclaimer is fine for that purpose but my worry is it lulls people into thinking they don't have liability for negligence when they absolutely do.

If you don't want to take responsibility for it, don't run a food business.

Especially places like Costa that are making chunky profits, they have no excuse for not getting their processes right

It's not different from being criminally liable on the roads.
We all drive our children on the roads (or walk along them, or cross them) knowing that anyone on the roads could be driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol

There is a standard of care below which, in any situation, someone can be held criminally liable and rightly so.

Of course there's an evidential threshold to meet and that is why Costa should have made sure they had much better record keeping (like some restaurants do really well these days)

But people need to get their head round the fact that food is not benign and therefore needs to be approached with the same care and responsibility as driving a vehicle or providing cosmetic treatment or any of the other profession anywhere negligence could potentially result in a criminal conviction and /or civil liability

I agree it seems as if it’s the wrong food that’s been given as opposed to traces which is massively worrying - if companies are continually allowed to wriggle out of taking responsibility nothing will change. Watching to see how these current cases unfold with interest.

Do you think someone would be held responsible if they added rat poison to load of coffees and handed them over to customers?

Staff who work in food service are absolutely responsible for safety around allergies, regardless of their pay level.

If the staff member didn't have adequate training, then Costa are at fault. If she did, then she is to blame.

If your condition is so critical that a simple mistake could kill you, maybe don't put yourself in that situation? If someone is deathly allergic to potatoes and they go to McDonald's hoping a minimum age worker won't make a mistake, that stupidity is most definitely on them.

It's no different from wheelchair access to me. People with allergies shouldn't be excluded from a huge part of modern life (eating /drinking out with friends) and the legislation should reinforce that.

Plus each business that doesn't accommodate my child with allergies safely misses out on the business of the rest of our family as we would never go somewhere where he wasn't safe. Given the rise in people with allergies companies that can't get this right are missing out on a lot of business