A Stellenbosch restaurant has successfully overturned a High Court ruling that held it liable for damages after a woman swallowed a needle-like foreign object while eating a hamburger at its establishment.
The Western Cape High Court in Cape Town, sitting as a full bench, upheld an appeal by Beyerskloof Wine Bar (Pty) Ltd setting aside an earlier ruling that found the establishment liable for damages suffered by M Williams.
In a recent judgment, Judges P Van Zyl, A Le Grange and D Kusevitsky found that Williams had failed to prove that the restaurant was negligent.
The court ordered Williams to pay the wine bar’s legal costs for the trial, the applications for leave to appeal and the appeal itself.
Woman hospitalised for five days
The incident occurred on October 3, 2020, when Williams and her husband visited the restaurant, which the couple regularly frequented for dinner.
Williams ordered a hamburger and side dishes, while the couple also ordered wine and water.
According to the judgment, she was halfway through her meal when she experienced discomfort, as though something had become lodged in her throat.
She began coughing and went to the restroom in an attempt to dislodge the object. When she noticed blood in the basin, she became distressed and returned to her husband before deciding to seek medical attention.
The couple left the restaurant and went to the emergency rooms at Stellenbosch Mediclinic, where X-rays revealed a needle-like object lodged in her throat.
An ear, nose and throat specialist attempted to remove the object manually but was unsuccessful. An operation was also attempted later, but it did not succeed.
Williams remained in hospital for five days while doctors monitored the object’s movement through repeated X-rays and administered medication to facilitate its passage through her body. She was discharged when the object was no longer visible on the X-rays.
Williams maintained that the object could only have entered her body through the food served at the restaurant. However, she could not identify whether it had been lodged in the hamburger bun, patty or garnish, nor could she explain how it had entered the food.
The exact nature of the object was not established in the court record, and no medical evidence was presented.
Earlier ruling found restaurant liable
The dispute initially proceeded to trial on the question of liability, with the parties having agreed to separate that issue from the determination of damages.
On May 29, 2025, the trial court found in Williams’s favour, ruling that the restaurant had failed in its duty to serve safe food.
The court relied heavily on the legal doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, a Latin expression meaning “the thing speaks for itself”, which may allow negligence to be inferred from the circumstances of an incident where direct evidence is limited.
The trial court reasoned that the restaurant had not provided a satisfactory explanation for how the foreign object ended up in the hamburger. It also questioned the evidence presented about the restaurant’s food-safety procedures, kitchen operations and quality-control measures.
The restaurant challenged the ruling and was granted leave to appeal by the Supreme Court of Appeal.
In considering the appeal, the full bench examined whether the circumstances justified an inference of negligence and whether the evidence established that the restaurant had failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the incident.
Court rejects inference of negligence
In the appeal judgment, Van Zyl said the trial court had misapplied the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur by treating the unexplained incident as sufficient to establish a case of negligence and effectively requiring the restaurant to provide an explanation.
The appeal court stressed that the burden of proving negligence remained with Williams throughout the proceedings.
It found that the doctrine did not shift the burden of proof to the restaurant or allow the court to fill gaps in the evidence presented by the plaintiff.
“The trial court could not rely merely on the maxim to fill in the gaps in the plaintiff’s evidence,” Van Zyl said.
The court further found that the restaurant’s control over the preparation and service of the hamburger did not establish that it had control over the unidentified foreign object, particularly in the absence of evidence that the restaurant or its employees knew it was present.
The judges also considered the evidence of the restaurant’s general manager, Van Straaten, who testified that the establishment had never experienced a similar incident.
The restaurant sourced its hamburger ingredients from third-party suppliers and had health and safety protocols intended to ensure food safety. Staff members were trained in these procedures, while the general manager oversaw the restaurant’s operations.
The evidence also established that plastic brushes, rather than metal brushes, were used to baste the hamburger patties on the grill, eliminating one potential source of the foreign object identified during the proceedings.
Although the trial court had criticised the restaurant for failing to provide detailed evidence about its kitchen procedures on the evening in question, the appeal court found that the evidence as a whole did not establish negligence.
Restaurant could not reasonably have foreseen the incident
The appeal court considered whether a reasonable person in the restaurant’s position would have foreseen the possibility of harm and taken additional precautions to prevent it.
Van Zyl found that Williams had not established that the presence of a foreign object in an unidentified ingredient of the hamburger was reasonably foreseeable.
The court noted that there had been no previous incidents or warning signs that would have alerted the restaurant to such a risk.
It also considered whether the restaurant should have taken additional measures beyond the food-safety protocols already in place.
The judgment referred to suggestions such as X-raying every ingredient delivered by suppliers, dismantling ingredients to inspect them for foreign objects or scanning every dish with a metal detector.
The court described these suggestions as bordering on the absurd, using them to illustrate the extent of the precautions that might otherwise be expected if every conceivable risk had to be eliminated.
Even if the possibility of harm had been foreseeable, the judges found insufficient grounds to conclude that a reasonable restaurant operator would have taken more drastic precautions than those already in place.
The court held that the inability to establish how the object entered the hamburger also prevented a proper finding on negligence and causation.
Court rejects strict liability argument
The judgment also addressed the question of whether a restaurant should automatically be held liable when a customer is injured by a foreign object in food.
Van Zyl referred to existing Supreme Court of Appeal authority, which established that South African law does not impose strict liability in such circumstances simply because a product is alleged to be defective.
Instead, a claimant relying on the common-law Aquilian action must establish the requirements for delictual liability, including wrongful conduct, fault, causation and harm.
The court said the trial court would have erred had it effectively treated the restaurant as strictly liable for Williams’s injuries merely because the food served to her contained a foreign object.
The judges concluded that Williams had not discharged the burden of proving negligence and that the trial court’s finding of liability could not stand.
The appeal was upheld, the earlier order was set aside, and Williams’s claim was dismissed.
The ruling dealt with liability and did not determine the amount of damages Williams might otherwise have sought.
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