A P2 million damage suit was filed by a female lawyer against a restaurant that allegedly served her iced tea that contained bits of broken glass.
Lawyer Maria Lourdes Bragat has asked the Cebu City Regional Trial Court to order Gramby Food Inc. to pay her P1 million in moral damages, another P1 million for exemplary damages, and P50,000 for the attorney’s fees.
Bragat, who works at the Regional Special Appealed Cases Unit of the Public Attorney’s Office, had incurred expenses after she was diagnosed with “linear abrasions” in her esophagus in a medical examination done after the incident.
Named respondent in the case is Gramby Food Inc. represented by its president Edwin Vincent Ortiz. Gramby Foods owns and manages Sunburst restaurant located at the second floor of SM City Cebu.
Last Jan. 6, 2013, Bragat and her husband Senior Insp. Alberto Quilitorio had dinner inside Sunburst.
The two had iced tea and Bragat later noticed a piece of broken glass in her drink. “What the plaintiff and her then-fiancee had all along considered a romatic dinner turned out to be a disaster,” her lawyers said.
Bragat called the attention of the restaurant’s waiting staff on the incident.
Endoscopy
A certain Hermie Dumaguit, who introduced himself as the manager of Sunburst restaurant, examined the glass of iced tea and confirmed the presence of broken glass shards in the iced tea that Bragat drank.
Bragat was advised by her surgeon friend to undergo an endoscopy, a medical procedure that determines whether or not she sustained any internal injuries.
The following day, Bragat underwent an endoscopy at Chong Hua Medical Center.
The test showed that Bragat sustained “multiple pinpoint erosions in linear arrangement…of the esophagus.”
She also had “multiple pinpoint erosions scattered over the antrum and body.” When Bragat was discharged from the hospital, she was under medication for several days.
Bragat claimed that Gramby Food Inc., through the wife of its president, washed their hands off the incident.