Bosse V. Brinker Case Summary

Agent or Vigilante?

Bosse v. Brinker Restaurant Corporation, d.b.a. Chili’s Grill and Bar

The plaintiffs, Bosse and Griffin, sued Chili’s for negligence seeking compensatory damages claiming a patron who pursued them following their skipping out on a restaurant bill was acting as agent for Chili’s at the time the patron caused the plaintiff’s car accident and that Chili’s was, therefore, responsible for the crash.
I feel the case was reaching, a family grasping to make accountability the responsibility of someone else, or a lawyer attempting to push the boundaries of an agency.
“Agency relationships are formed by the mutual consent of a principal and an agent.” (Cheeseman, p.487) Our book goes on to cite the Restatement (Second) of Agency,

Benefit of furtherance: Was the benefit Chili’s could potentially earn of sufficient value to suggest they might have authorized the high-speed chase for the purpose of its recovery?
Source: Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly - 2005

In Bosse and Griffin’s case against Chili’s, they needed to prove that all three elements were present in the action of the patron who pursued them for the case to proceed.
Had they been able to do so, Chili’s, the principal in the agency relationship, would have been responsible for the tortious conduct of the patron, the agent. (Cheeseman, p.503) The tort remedies that would have been recoverable from Chili’s might have included “medical expenses; lost wages; pain and suffering; emotional distress; and, in some cases, punitive damages.” (Cheeseman, p.503)
The conclusion of the court in their summary judgment was that no “genuine issue of material fact” was present to establish “a claim of an agency relationship.” In fact, masslawyersweekly.com reports the court went on to say, “If the evidence had failed to materialize upon any one of those elements, the deficiency would be fatal to the lawsuit. The evidence appears to have failed to materialize upon all three of the elements.” Thus, in this case, none of the prongs of the test was met to indicate agency. (Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly,