Five years ago, an Indiana woman took her sons to a WWE event and died at the show. According to The Daily Mail, the pyrotechnics during the performance caused Susan Prim to have a fatal asthma attack. Prim was a known asthmatic, and details are scarce in the case, but now her family is suing multiple parties they consider liable for her death, because they feel the show was not safe enough.
This isn’t the only case where people are holding companies accountable for allergic reactions. In a recent case against United Airlines, a Sacramento woman whose severe reaction to peanuts forced an emergency landing of the aircraft is suing the airline for not taking her allergy more seriously. She had requested the airline announce the allergy to the rest of the passengers to ensure the public would not eat peanuts, but the airline denied her request.
Then there was the case of the seventh-grader who died as a result of a peanut reaction after a school trip to a Chinese restaurant.
Or how about the University of Nanaimo student who claimed the school should accommodate her “visual allergies”?
As cases build, the debate on both sides of the issue is hot: who is ultimately responsible for allergies? School boards limit foods children can bring for lunches, airlines have adjusted menus to accommodate restrictions, and many restaurants are keenly aware of the need to provide safe food for people, but whose responsibility is it when something goes wrong? Do we have a social responsibility to protect people with allergies, or is it up to the allergic to manoeuvre life cautiously?
What do you think of these cases?
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