- Maxine Williams spent five days in hospital after swallowing a needle-like object while eating a hamburger at Beyerskloof Wine Bar in October 2020.
- The restaurant denied responsibility, arguing that the evidence did not show negligence or explain how the foreign object ended up in the food.
- A full bench found that the trial court wrongly relied on the principle of res ipsa loquitur and dismissed Williams’s claim, upholding the appeal.
A restaurant is not automatically liable for a diner’s injuries just because a foreign object is found in the food it serves.
In a judgment delivered on 12 October 2026, a full bench of the High Court in the Western Cape confirmed that anyone seeking damages must prove negligence, even if the situation raises concerns about food safety.
The court upheld the appeal by Beyerskloof Wine Bar (Pty) Ltd against an earlier finding that it was responsible for damages suffered by Maxine Williams. Judge P van Zyl, with Judge A Le Grange and Judge D Kusevitsky agreeing, found that Williams had not proved negligence and that the trial court had wrongly relied on the principle of res ipsa loquitur, which means “the thing speaks for itself”.
Diner spent five days in hospital
The incident happened on the evening of 3 October 2020, when Williams and her husband went to the restaurant for dinner. She ordered a hamburger with sides and started feeling discomfort halfway through her meal, as if something was stuck in her throat.
Williams went to the restroom, where she coughed and tried to dislodge the object. After noticing blood in the basin, she became distressed and returned to the table, telling her husband she couldn’t remove it. They left the restaurant and went straight to the emergency department at Stellenbosch Mediclinic.
X-rays confirmed that a needle-like object was lodged in her throat. An ear, nose and throat specialist tried to remove it, but the procedure was unsuccessful. Williams stayed in hospital for five days while doctors monitored the object’s movement through repeated X-rays. She was discharged when it was no longer visible.
Williams insisted that the object could not have come from her clothing or her husband and must have entered her body through the restaurant’s food. However, she couldn’t say whether it had been in the hamburger bun, patty or garnish, or explain how it got into the meal.
Trial court found restaurant liable
Williams brought a damages claim against the restaurant. Both parties agreed that the trial would first decide liability, leaving the amount of damages to be determined later if her claim succeeded.
On 29 May 2025, the trial court found the restaurant liable, saying it was at fault for failing to serve safe food. The court relied on res ipsa loquitur to infer negligence from the presence of the foreign object, and said the restaurant had not provided a plausible explanation for the incident.
The trial court questioned the restaurant’s evidence about its health and safety protocols, its inspection of ingredients and the circumstances under which the hamburger was prepared. The restaurant’s general manager, Van Straaten, was not present that evening and could not explain exactly what happened in the kitchen. The court also questioned whether the restaurant had properly investigated the incident or established which staff members had prepared the meal.
The restaurant appealed, arguing that the trial court had wrongly treated the lack of an explanation as a reason to shift the burden of proof. It argued that the evidence did not prove negligence and that the law does not allow automatic liability just because a foreign object is found in food.
Court examines the principle that the incident speaks for itself
Judge Van Zyl explained that res ipsa loquitur does not create a presumption of negligence or shift the legal burden of proof to the defendant. Instead, it may help a claimant argue that the circumstances suggest negligence.
The judgment found that the trial court had wrongly used the principle to fill gaps in Williams’s evidence. The court was supposed to assess all the evidence, probabilities and reasonable inferences to decide whether she had proved negligence on a balance of probabilities.
The full bench also questioned the trial court’s finding that the restaurant had control over the foreign object. Although the restaurant managed the preparation and serving of the meal, the court said this was not the same as controlling an unidentified object that it had no reason to know about.
The trial court had therefore made a mistake by relying only on the circumstances to establish negligence and by requiring the restaurant to disprove an inference that Williams had not sufficiently proven. The burden of proving negligence stayed with Williams throughout the case.
Restaurant’s food safety measures considered
The court separately considered whether the restaurant had been negligent under the usual legal test. Williams had to show that a reasonable person in the restaurant’s position would have foreseen the possibility of harm, would have taken reasonable steps to prevent it, and that the restaurant had failed to take those steps.
Van Straaten testified that the business got its hamburger ingredients from third-party suppliers and had health and safety protocols to ensure food safety. Staff were trained, deliveries were checked, and plastic brushes were used to baste and clean the grill. The patties came from a butchery that had been in business since around the 1960s. Van Straaten also said the restaurant had never experienced a similar incident before.
Although Van Straaten was not there that night, the court found no previous incidents or warning signs that would have alerted a reasonable restaurant to the risk of a foreign object getting into one of the hamburger’s ingredients.
Judge Van Zyl also considered whether extra precautions would have been reasonable, such as X-raying every ingredient, taking apart the ingredients to check their contents, or scanning every dish with a metal detector.
The judgment described these suggestions as bordering on the absurd, showing how extreme the precautions would have to be to eliminate every possible risk. The court concluded that a reasonable person in the restaurant’s position would not have gone to such lengths, given the safety measures already in place.
The court held that the evidence did not show the restaurant had acted negligently. It also found that, without proof of fault, the trial court could not properly hold the restaurant responsible for the damages.
Strict liability does not replace proof of negligence
The full bench also looked at whether the trial court had treated the restaurant as strictly liable for the injuries caused by the foreign object.
Judge Van Zyl referred to the Supreme Court of Appeal’s decision in Wagener v Pharmacare Ltd; Cuttings v Pharmacare Ltd, which considered whether the common law should be changed to impose strict liability for defective products.
The judgment confirmed that the common-law Aquilian action is still the remedy for people seeking damages in these cases. A claimant must still prove all the elements needed for delictual liability, including an act, wrongfulness, fault, causation and harm. If any of these elements is missing, there is no liability.
The court held that strict liability did not offer another way to hold the restaurant liable in Williams’s case. It said that imposing strict liability would require new legislation, not a change to the existing common law.
Appeal upheld and claim dismissed
The full bench upheld the restaurant’s appeal, set aside the trial court’s order and replaced it with an order dismissing Williams’s claim.
Williams was also ordered to pay the restaurant’s legal costs for the trial, the application for leave to appeal, the application for special leave to appeal before the Supreme Court of Appeal, and the appeal itself.
Get your news on the go. Click here to follow the Conviction WhatsApp channel.
