Legal Question in Consumer Law in Pennsylvania

Re: Fish hook in chicken

As the previous poster pointed out, it appears your damages in this matter are miniscule. Had the hook cut your mouth or tongue or caused more severe damage to your person then it might be a matter worth pursuing.

I would suggest not cashing the check at this point. Then, I would either write a letter yourself or have an attorney write a letter to the company. In the letter indicate that you were shocked by the incident and believe the trauma you suffered from having chewed on a fish hook is worth a fair bit more than $30.

But as was previously stated, you do not have much of a claim here.

Re: Fish hook in chicken

I do not practice personal injury law and this is actually more of a personal injury/product liability claim than a consumer claim. The first question is whether you have any damages. It appears that you have no physical damages to your body. The next type of damages would be mental. You don't appear to have physical manifestations of anguish, e.g., when you see a chicken nugget, you don't reflexively vomit from anxiety according to your fact pattern.

When I go to a restaurant, if there is a hair in my salad, whatever, I may get a free dessert from the manager but I am not that grossed out by it. I don't make a big scene. But a rusty fishhook is potentially more serious. If it scraped your tongue, you could need tetanus shots; who knows how sanitary it is. It could cause more serious health risks.

You question is whether there is anything else that can be done to prevent this from happening in the future and the answer is no. Stuff happens. If the fish hook actually came from the chicken, there is no way to stop this. There are unknown ways that it could get into the chicken--maybe the chicken swallowed it (in which case, it should not have entered the meat), maybe the fish and chicken share processing facilities (again, they don't use fishhooks to catch their fish but occasionally one may have a hook in its mouth, and again, the hook should not get into the food). The metal scans are done to ensure that objects such as hooks are not in the food.

A consultation with a good personal injury/product liability lawyer will uncover any possible claims that you may have here, although your case may be hard to prove and may not be worth much as your damages do not seem high--but I don't try these cases. In any event, I would not cash the $30, redeem the coupons or sign anything that the company gives you until you have talked to an attorney unless you are satisfied with the compensation that you have received. You may also want to talk to your family MD about the risk of tetanus.