Maxine Williams who swallowed a sharp object in a hamburger at Beyerskloof Wine Bar in Stellenbosch in October 2020, underwent failed surgery to remove the foreign body.

A court initially found the restaurant liable, but a full Bench of the Western Cape High Court has overturned the ruling.

News24 reports that it said she failed to prove negligence, there is no precise description of the object on record, and no medical evidence was furnished.

According to the papers, Williams was in a state of panic when the incident occurred and ‘she attempted to insert her finger into her throat to dislodge the object quicker’.

Failing to remove the object from her throat, she told her husband she wanted to leave, so they settled their bill and went to the emergency rooms at Stellenbosch Mediclinic, where she was admitted immediately.

X-rays were taken, revealing a needle-like object lodged in her throat.

The ENT specialist attempted to remove or extract this object manually, but could not succeed. She could not be operated on either that evening, as she had eaten food and drank wine.

However, she was kept in hospital overnight for constant monitoring.

After seven hours, Williams underwent an ultimately unsuccessful operation to remove the object. She remained in the hospital for five days until the ‘foreign object’ was no longer visible on the X-rays.

The trial court found Beyerskloof Wine Bar liable, relying on the legal maxim res ipsa loquitur which allows courts to infer negligence from the mere fact that something dangerous happened.

A needle-like object in a hamburger, the lower court reasoned, speaks for itself.

In their unanimous judgment delivered yesterday, Judge Phillipa Van Zyl, with Judges André le Grange and Dèidre Kusevitsky concurring, found that Williams had produced no expert evidence identifying what the object was, no factual evidence explaining how it had found its way into the food, and therefore no basis on which a court could infer that the restaurant had been careless.

The restaurant had explained during proceedings that food quality was checked upon delivery and it used plastic brushes, not metal brushes, to baste and clean the grill.

‘The maxim res ipsa loquitur... should have stayed in the wings,’ the court said bluntly.

Without knowing how the object got there, the court said, it was impossible to conclude that the restaurant had failed to take reasonable precautions.

The fact that something went wrong, even something as alarming as a needle in a burger, does not, by itself, prove negligence.

News24 notes that Williams was not only denied her claim; she was ordered to pay the restaurant’s legal costs across the trial, two leave-to-appeal applications and the full appeal.

Full News24 report

Judgment