Woman Sues “House of Throwed Rolls” After Toss Leaves Her With Torn Cornea

Lambert’s Cafe in Missouri calls itself the “Home of the Throwed Rolls” after its signature practice of lobbing dinner rolls by servers to guests. It is now accused of serving up an unrequested tort after Troy Tucker was hit in the eye and has sued the restaurant for medical bills and legal fees.

According to her complaint, she “sustained a lacerated cornea with a vitreous detachment and all head, neck, eyes and vision were severely damaged” in September of 2014. The roll tossing is alleged to be a “defective condition” of the restaurant and the practice overtly negligent.

The restaurant is defending itself by saying that there was no malice in the toss. In other words, the server was not trying to take out Tucker’s eye.

Tucker is seeking $25,000 to cover for her medical bills and legal fees.

The case could raise some interesting questions about Plaintiff’s conduct like the decision to go to a place called “The House of Throwed Rolls” and then complain about either bad grammar or a thrown roll. To what extent the jury views Tucker as assuming the risk or contributing to her own injury will be fascinating. On the other hand, she could claim that she expected rolls to be thrown in a reasonable and professional way. Of course, there are no associations or guidelines on proper, safe bread tossing so this would have to remain a question for the jury.

The case reminds one of the prior disputed over the shooting of hotdogs at the Kansas City Royals games. (What is it with flying food in Missouri?) The Missouri Supreme Court correctly ruled on behalf of a baseball fan who says he was hit in the eye with a hot dog thrown by Sluggerrr, the Kansas City Royals mascot. The fan sued the Kansas City Royals and its mascot Sluggerrr after he was hit in the eye by a hot dog thrown into the crowd. He suffered a detached retina and other injures. A jury ruled against him in favor of their popular mascot in a verdict that I previously questioned since it seems to be clearly negligent to fire these projectiles into the crowd.

What is it with flying food in Missouri?