Pudding fear of litigation first...

Those of you teaching Contract Law at A2 will be used to dealing with exemption clauses. For OCR, exemption clauses are this year’s special study paper topic. This story is (excuse another pun) a cracker.

Customers at a London restaurant are being asked to sign a waiver before they eat Christmas pud in case they should bite into a “lucky” silver charm embedded in the pudding!

Here is the text of the clause that diners at the restaurant have to sign:

I the undersigned realise that by eating this Christmas Pudding at High Timber Restaurant, London, I could bite into a lucky silver sixpence or silver charm.

I absolve entirely High Timber from all blame or liability should I come to any harm including but not limited to a chipped tooth, or any injury as a result of swallowing it.

I eat this Christmas Pudding in the full knowledge there may be silver items within.

Signed………………………………………. Print Name………………………………………

I am going to ask my students to decide whether this clause is incorporated into the contract, whether the clause can be constructed to cover the sort of misfortune that may occur, and to apply the relevant legislation (UCTA 1977 and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999) to the clause and advise me whether it covers the restaurant if I should eat one of their puddings and crack a tooth on a silver charm! You could always invent a scenario involving negligence on the part of the restaurant to make this work nicely.

You can download a worksheet to use with your students here