Q: Selling food illegally under a non profit organization.
A non profit City organization holds events once per month where they charge food vendors for attending the event. The money the non profit receives goes to maintain and preserve the city's historical downtown.
90 percent of the food vendors are not licensed by either of Florida's licensing agencies. (DBPR and FDACS) Nor do they carry any liability insurance. They sell everything from lukewarm cheesecakes out of a cooler as well as novelty ice cream you can tell was melted and then refrozen.
If a child were to get sick from one of those vendors, would it be safe to assume that the consumer should pursue a case against the non-profit for negligence? Or try to use each vendor as as individuals? Yes, the non-profit have been informed twice already over the past year and they don't do anything about it.
Thank you!
A: Before getting to your question about liability, how about reporting it to your local health department? I would think those folks would be interested, regardless of licensing issues. And if the health dept. takes action, local media may be interested as well. Turning to the liability question, if someone is injured due to negligence involving multiple parties, the claimant's attorney will naturally look for any and all potential defendants, starting with the one(s) with the best insurance coverage. If suit must be filed (because of not settling at the insurance/presuit claim stage), the claimant can sue as many parties as he/she wishes in the same suit, as long as there is some arguable basis for liability. So a claimant in your scenario is not limited to suing JUST the vendor or JUST the nonprofit entity. Assuming food poisoning can be proven with medical evidence, there could be a strong basis for liability of the vendor, but there could also be various potential theories of liability for any other party overseeing and/or sponsoring the event (for example, negligent supervision and vicarious liability). If the event is on city land, the city itself might also be targeted for liability.
Terrence H Thorgaard agrees with this answer
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