Is it time to lawyer up or just accept it?

Long story short: I lost a front tooth crown/veneer after taking a bite from a well known chain known for bread. I submitted a claim with the store, who kicked it into corporate customer services hands. I get a call from the insurance umbrella people and after a short chat, I get the cold shoulder and basically told they are going to deny the claim because I can't produce the offending piece of food causing damage. Today I got the official written denial. Yes even with the usps it came Monday. I talked to the insurance company 1 or 2pm on Friday..... 

So again, what would GRM do?

PS- I know it'll have to be done, but 9300$ is a awesome chunk of change to E36 M3 for just this one tooth.

Did you bite something that wasn't food or was it actually food and your crown/veneer gave up on it when you bit it?

That's a tough one, no idea why they'd expect you to keep the food, but on the other hand, no proof - no case. Did you report it to someone in the store right away? Any photos that would be time/date stamped?

In reply to yupididit :

It was the crust portion and the tooth broke.

In reply to Steve_Jones :

Reported when I had a chance which was less than a week after it happened. I have the pictures I took right after it happened at work.

That place was awesome when new and has gone downhill.  I expect them to be crappy to deal with.   Sorry about your problem.    

Piece of bread? Sure, it's right here at my lawyers.....

In reply to Ranger50 :

Not to be negative here but that could've happened at any time biting anything. Tough bread or an apple. 

It doesn't sound like the bread was somehow defective, so I'm struggling to see both the legal and moral justification for going after the Well Known Bread Chain. If you're going to be suing anyone, it would make more sense to try your luck with the dentist- seems like their work failed under normal use. How recently did you have the dental work done? 

It stinks to have to pony up that much cash, and I'm sympathetic to that, but that doesn't mean that the Bread Chain was negligent. 

Ranger50 said:

In reply to Steve_Jones :

Reported when I had a chance which was less than a week after it happened. I have the pictures I took right after it happened at work.

So just so that the facts are straight.

Yiu bit into the crust of the bread, it broke while in the restaurant, you didn't immediately grab a manager but instead you waited a week to report it?

If that's the case, you don't really have a case.

But honestly if crusty bread made that happen, it sounds like it was already damaged/compromised in some way.

But I feel your pain, my lady had crown a few months ago, they did such crappy that even after going back in to have it reset, it still became inflamed and infected and I had to come out of pocket $2100 last month for her to have a root canal because they screwed the pooch.

Common for teeth to break chewing bread, ask any dentist. Has happened to me a couple times. Got a crown on one and just had the other removed. Had a couple girlfriends over the years who worked at dental offices and both said breaking teeth chewing bread is common. Doubt you'll get anything from the bread makers insurance.

In reply to flat4_5spd :

So along the same line, which is a good point, how am I supposed to know that maybe they are to toss out bread after 6 hrs of shelf time after baking? I didn't get to eat/delivery until 230pm. When was that bread made? So do they have or keep records like that?

In reply to z31maniac :

It was delivered to work.

In reply to Ranger50 :

Go without the tooth. The grand ol' USA puts an inordinate amount of glammer in "tooth display". Go live anywhere else in the world, and no one gives a floss. 

I don't think it's reasonable to question the age (in hours) of bread that you ordered for delivery and think it might have contributed to your breaking a tooth while eating food.

If there was a rock in the bread or something, sure.  But people eat hard food all the time.

Unless there was a foreign object (like a rock) in the bread I don't thinkyou have a case.  As mentioned sometimes teeth just break...it could have had a crack in it for a long time, and it just finally came loose all the way.  The same thing happened to me earlier this year; I forget what exactly I was eating at the time but it was nothing unusual or very hard to chew, and a tooth just cracked in half.

I'm sorry, but, what?

You bit into a piece of bread and your tooth broke?  And you think it's the fault of the bread?  But you didn't think it was important enough to report it right away?  Did you wrap up the offending piece of rock hard bread and keep it for evidence?

I am actually at a loss for words.....

Gotta agree with the consensus here. I don't see how the bread company is ultimately at fault. 

I think you are seeing how your case will go.

Walk away.  Don't waste your time and money.

My guess is that if you talk to an attorney they'll tell you you don't have a case. Or they'll take it but not on a contingent basis which should tell you it's not a good case and they know it so they want money up front.

Sorry it happened but sometimes it's no one's fault.

Talk to a lawyer and get a consultation. They'll tell you better than anyone here whether or not you actually have any chances. As mentioned above, I'd only secure a lawyer if they're willing to take it on a contingent basis.

My money would be on that, even if you lawyer up, it will never see court.

Can pretty well guarantee that their SOP on any legal claim is to just have someone in legal give a pretty canned "No." This will make most people go away. From there, it will be a question of who it's more hassle/cost for.

Most likely, if you get a lawyer to draft an official response, it'll go back, they'll weigh the cost to keep messing with things, and offer some sort of settlement based on the strength of your case. If the case is weak, it might be a couple hundred bucks to STFU. If it's strong, it would be a couple thousand to avoid the cost of going to trial.

If you don't accept, they'll probably play dumb and force you to go through the cost/hassle to actually file a claim against them, wagering that many people won't. From there, I suspect they'll probably just file a bunch of discovery or extension that take them little time/money and make your job a PITA. They'll do this until you either get annoyed and drop the whole thing to stop throwing money at a lawyer, or until you're frustrated enough to accept a settlement.

My analysis is worth exactly what you paid for it.

In reply to Beer Baron :

Pretty good summary. I have not handled liability claims like this in quite a few years but this is basically where you are at. 

Initial impression is that its a pretty weak case.  No preservation of the evidence, late reporting.   I have no idea if they keep records of when things where baked versus sold btw. 

One of my favorites was a claim for ants in a woman's drink. When she was sitting at a bus stop about half an hour after purchasing.  Had finished about half the drink then put on the ground.  Next sip from the straw and there were ants.  She had shopped lawyers then made a claim herself. Did not seem to understand the reasoning we were not willing to make an offer.  

Wait what. Sue the manufacturer of the bread???   You are joking right?   
 

This reminds me of the time as part of a design we replaced the downspouts at a school with Schedule 80 PVC because kids like to bash the aluminum ones. 6 months later I get a call telling me I am being sued because a kid took a swing at the downspout with a baseball bat and it bounced back and cracked him in the head putting him in the hospital.  I told them I looked forward to going to court and hearing how it was my fault that there kid ended up hurt while trying to destroy school property.  
 

As for your situation I would be having a talk with the dentist that put them in. Maybe sue them or next time ask for a warranty  on your dental work. No really. I have done this with crowns in the past.  How old are the crowns?  In MA there is a mandatory one year warranty  on construction that contractors have to provide. I wonder if through "reach and apply" you could make a case that the dentists have to warranty  there work.  Highly unlikely you would get any where but you would have a better chance with that in court than going after the bread manufacturer. 

Ranger50 said:

In reply to z31maniac :

It was delivered to work.

I'm confused by this response and how it relates to me asking if the facts were correct. 

Hmm.  A front tooth broke on a piece of bread?  Generally if that happens, the tooth was very compromised to begin with and the bread didn't really break it.  So, no, don't really think the bread is what broke the tooth.

As far as addressing the other member, who's gal got a crown and needed a root canal, that happens all the time and isn't due to a "bad crown" or a bad job doing the crown.  Many times whatever caused the tooth to need the crown will cause the tooth to need a root canal too, just not right away...