What is your liability if your boss comes to dinner at your house and chokes on a piece of food? The Scarlet Witch and Vision had to face that threat in the first episode of WandaVision, where the real danger was not chewing enough before swallowing food.
Mr. Heart, from Computational Services, required employees to have him over for dinner in order to be considered for promotion. A bad dinner could result in being terminated. This situation made Mr. and Mrs. Heart “business visitors” in Wanda and Vision’s home, because the Hearts were there for “a purpose directly or indirectly connected with business dealings between them.” O’Keefe v. S. End Rowing Club, 64 Cal. 2d 729, 735, (1966). As such, the Hearts were “invitees,” because the dinner party involved “some matter of mutual business interest or advantage.” Id. This meant that Wanda and Vision owed the Hearts a duty of “reasonable care under all the circumstances.” Ruhs v. Pacific Power Light, 671 F.2d 1268, 1272 (10th Cir. 1982).
People are responsible for “an injury occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or herself.” Cal. Civ. Code § 1714.
It requires a serious suspension of disbelief that Wanda’s cooking was responsible for Mr. Heart not chewing his food before swallowing. While there is the possibility food was not properly prepared, the idea that Wanda created the situation where Mr. Heart bit off more than he could chew is highly problematic.
This was not a situation where a homeowner hosting a dinner party did not immediately clean up a spill and a dinner guest had a slip and fall as a basis for liability. Those kinds of affirmative facts of negligence are not present with Mr. Heart’s lack of chewing. Corrado v. Delzotti, 15 A.D.2d 527 (N.Y. App. Div. 1961).
Case law has held that the duty owed to an invitee in a restaurant is to summon medical assistance during a medical emergency, not actually providing first aid. Drew v. LeJay’s Sportmen’s Cafe, Inc., 806 P.2d 301, 306 (Wyo. 1991). In the Drew case, the victim had a 2-inch by 2-inch chunk of meat lodged in his trachea that likely would have required surgery. Id. The Defendant contacted 911 for assistance. Moreover, the opinion noted that at that time, there were an estimated 270 billion meals consumed in the U.S., with only 3,000 choking death each year. The idea of a food server having to face a choking victim was remote. That said it would be a wise business practice for anyone in food service to know the Heimlich maneuver. “Eat at your own risk,” is a horrible marketing campaign for a restaurant.
Wanda and Vision were morally correct to not let Mr. Heart choke to death. Vision’s intervention was less traumatic than performing an “upper chest thrust” to remove the obstruction from Mr. Heart’s trachea. While their duty was likely limited to calling 911, knowing the signs of choking and how to perform the Heimlich maneuver is basic human decency in the 21st Century.
