Give Us Proper Compensation, Chili's!

I don't know what to think of your request.
You want some free food or a heft sum of cash because your daughter
slipped. There was obviously no injury, and you cite lawsuits related
to similar incidents. My thought is that you are thinking "Yes! It
happened to me! I want to get something out of it now". I think that
what they gave you was good enough.

Part of the "accident report" is asking if medical assistance is
needed. I understand you might want to try and wait it out, but if the
slip provided you (as a parent) with a nervous feeling your
responsibility was to attend to the child and get her to a
hospital/clinic. Then and only then do you have the documented proof
required to persue this unfortunate incident.

I'll quote you.

Talk about cheap.


You were "worried" about her complains of pain so much that you stayed
for the entire meal and never went to the doctor?

It sounds more like you just want some money and you're using the
"owie" as entitlement for it.


In a way... to do that... to suspect an injury and do nothing (except
demanding cash)... you're pandering your child's pain for money.

:(

You have already indicated how much "compensation" your child's injury
was worth. The price of a dinner.
Since tha's what you IGNORED your child's injury for.
And that's what they gave you. So shut the heck up and be thankful
your child is still alive.

The problem here is the word "compensation."

You have used it correctly, in the sense that "compensation" can mean
"money paid for loss or injury."

The problem is, defining fair compensation for (what appears to be) an
injury that appears to require no medical treatment is difficult to
determine. It's easy to compensate someone if the loss can be
determined in monetary terms. For example, if Chili's was responsible
for the loss of a coat, fair compensation would be the value of the
coat. (Yes, we could argue over whether it's fair market value or
replacement value, but that's not important right now).

But how do you put a price on a little girl with a hurt head? Does
the fact that you didn't seek medical treatment suggest that the
injury wasn't severe?

So, instead of compensation, really what this is about is receiving a
gift as Chili's way of saying "we're sorry" and trying to keep you as
a customer. I don't see "compensation" and "a gift to keep you as a
customer" as being the same thing.

So, what the manager did was try to offer you what his standard gift
is: a free dessert. Apparently, that wasn't enough to keep you as a
customer. That's totally up to you if you'll accept that. There are
people who would never return to a place even if they were given a
$1000 gift. If you're mad, you're mad. And then there are those
people who think "hey, free dessert" and "I like Chili's enough
anyway" and they come back.

In the end, you need to decide if the reason you're not going back is
because Chili's doesn't properly keep their restaurants safe... or
because they didn't give you a big enough gift?

Not every "It happens" moment requries compensation. Had your child
been injured, or if her fall created enough of a concern for you to
take her to the doctor right away, then you should absolutely receive
payment for medical treatment and any other related expenses.
However, this sounds like it just falls under "It happens". Sometimes
you trip and fall and skin your knees or bump your head and you get up
and aren't any worse for the wear (which obviously applies to your
daughter, otherwise, you would have taken her to the ER instead of
having dinner, right?) So Chili's gave you free dessert and some gift
cards to compensate your daughter for being shaken and embarassed. If
you ask me, that's pretty generous.

I don't think you are helping your child learn to cope with life by
pursuing this. I'm sure since you felt the need to post this letter
you have discussed this in your home.

I think it's more important for your daughter to learn that sometimes
we fall and get hurt but now it's over and we get up and move on.

Important lesson for all ages.

Chili's made a goodwill effort with the $25.00 for what amounted to a
minor inconvenience for your family.

What exactly would you view as proper compensation? You say your
daughter hit her head hard enough to "make [you]nervous", but you
weren't nervous enough to miss dinner to take her to the emergency
room. In fact, you don't mention getting her medical attention at all
- just that she was crying while you ate your dinner. So I don't think
they owe you for medical bills. Are you looking a million dollars
cash? Free blooming onions for a year? If you give them an idea of
what you want, maybe they'll do something for you.

You know... this letter is a perfect antidote to the child molester
letter! That list to the left has some interesting letter titles!

Dinner at Chili's (did you order the waffles? ;)) vs. medical
attention for daughter.

Hmmm, which would you pick?

I may be out of line here as I don't yet have kids, but if my daughter
had fallen and hit her head hard enough to "make me nervous" I would
have left and taken her to the doctor or ER, not gone ahead and had my
dinner.

But hey, that's just me.

You left out some important details.

Was it raining outside, or was there water on the floor that your
daughter slipped on? If she slipped on water on the floor, Chilis is
liable. If it was raining outside, you have to be careful. At my
store we put up cones alerting people of the wet floor. You never
stated, so I am assuming it was raining. Was she running,
horseplaying?

I do not have rugs in my grocery store, due to elderly people slipping
on them, they tend to shuffle their feet more than walk. I do
however, have cones that are placed on all 4 of my exits, entrances.
I am not required to have mats, and do not for the reasons mentioned.
I do have to maintain the area, I cannot leave puddles of water, my
staff knows to do this.

I think they should have offered you the option to have an initial
doctor visit.

Perhaps you should have done that if you felt she was hurt that badly.
Children that age crave attention, she had the attention when she
fell, maybe when your party knew she was okay and started to eat, she
started moaning and groaning her falling to get the attention back on
her. Many adults do this same thing too!

Its hard to say without all the details


Good Day

If you feel you have not received adequate compensation for your
daughter's fall, then you need to do one of two things: First, let
Chili's know that $25 is not sufficient and that you want two free
meals for your whole family. If that doesn't work, then you need to
assemble all of the medical bills associated with this accident that
prove the exact injury/injuries your daughter suffered and try to find
an attorney willing to take the case on a contingency basis. Good
luck with that . . . .

if you feel they're offering was unsatisfactory, just file it
already!

And I don't see anywhere that you had your daughter checked out and
that is much more concerning than them not paying you for injuries
that weren't even substantiated.

I think the people were more shocked that you sat through a dinner
with your injured daughter who was obviously in pain rather than going
to a doctor.

Proper compensation would be taking your daughter to get the proper
treatments for a potential concussion and then sorting things out in
court if need be.

They should definitely be paying whatever medical bills your insurance
company (if you have one) didn't cover. But even though I would
expect parents who are "nervous" about their child's head injury to
cancel their dinner plans and go to the emergency room, I would also
expect someone who did seek medical help for their child to mention it
in a letter asking for compensation, and you don't mention anything
like that. So it sounds as if proper compensation for medical bills
is $0.

Proper compensation might also include something more if they were
negligent. But you don't describe any negligence in your letter --
not having a carpet that covers the entire floor is not necessarily
negligence. Did they have "wet floor" signs up? Was the floor
flooded or just wet? Was there snow outside, or was the floor wet
because something had spilled? Was it just water on the floor or was
it oil or something? And what was your daughter doing right before
she fell? It's not Chili's' fault if she was rolling around on
heelies, for instance, or running and then seeing how far she could
slide across the floor.

If you think there was negligence, you might want to write another
letter explaining the negligence in more detail -- or just go ahead
and file the lawsuit. I hope you took pictures of the floor so you
can show the negligence and pictures of the injuries to your daughter
so you can show what was the result of that negligence. But just
based on the facts you present in this letter, you haven't made a case
that they owe you any money beyond your medical costs -- and the
proper compensation there is $0.

That leaves you, based on the information you provide in your letter,
owed proper compensation of $0. They gave you desert *and* $25. It
seems to me that they are being perfectly reasonable.

Not everything bad that happens to you means someone owes you
something. Not everything bad that happens to your 8-year-old child
means someone owes you something. Sometimes bad things happen and we
need to pick ourselves up, shake ourselves off, and move on. I am
really sorry that this happened to her. I hope that you had Motrin or
something in your purse, that your child's pain responded quickly to
treatment with an over-the-counter pain medication, and that the
outing ended early so that she could go home and rest in her own bed
(or on her own couch while she watched TV or something). I'm glad
that she apparently didn't need medical care. But I just don't see
where Chili's' response wasn't perfectly adequate.

Count your blessings a little more closely next time!

Here's some numbers for ya' --- 911.

Sometimes I'm completely shocked by a letter.

This is one of those times.

I agree with a few others...your daughter fell on a ceramic tile floor
and hit her head yet you stayed and ordered, ate and even after she
complained about her head hurting you never left until your meal was
done.
And I doubt that the people were shocked that Chili's only offered you
desserts...they were probably shocked because you never took care your
daughter!

You do realize that she could have passed out, suffered a closed brain
tauma and worse yet died because of this injury? And if you think I am
over zealous in these things occuring people who have just hit their
head on softer things than that have died from not having medical care
afterwards.

And now you are upset because they did not offer you (proper"
compensation which is full meals?

Call me crazy but I am totally shocked that you would put food and
getting comped ahead of your daughters health.

Compensate you for WHAT? She has no real injury. You couldn't even
sue if you wanted to.

You need to come out and tell them exactly what it is you expect from
them, sue them, or just move on. My guess is that they won't offer
you any more beyond what they have already offered you, they will tell
you instead to talk to their lawyers.

Slip and fall? Pretty low blow, there. There's no permanent damage,
so be grateful and move on.

So you're kid fell, hit her head, and was hurt, but you stayed for
dinner and drinks at Chili's?

I'm thinking that Chili's should have called Child Protection.

Your daughter was crying saying that her head hurt and you kept
eating?

Did you take her to the doctor? I think any medical bills should be
covered, but I don't know what else you deserve.

If my child hit their head hard enough that they kept crying I would
have stayed until dessert.
Slip and fall lawsuits are only successful if there are actual
monetary damages such as medical bills and loss of wages. You don't
get compensated because the people around you were appalled that all
you were offered was a round of free dessert.

I'm glad your daughter wasn't injured. That said, the lawsuits that
people file against establishments after falls are to recoup their
damages. What damages did you experience? Can you itemize them, so
that Chili's can have a specific dollar amount to work with?

They have compensated you twice, but obviously their efforts have
fallen flat on the floor. If you want a specific amount of money,
just go for it. You could always sue them, that's the American Way.

The thing to be grateful for is that your daughter is ok and had no
doctor bills ($0, nada). I would be walking around thanking the good
[deity]. Grateful!