New York Court Reinstates Restaurant Worker’s Product Liability Suit

New York’s top court this week reinstated a Manhattan restaurant worker’s product liability lawsuit over a lye-crystal drain cleaner, concluding that the companies behind it have to do more than simply state the chemical compound is inherently dangerous and everyone knows it. Yun Tung Chow, who couldn’t read the directions in English, was burned and blinded in one eye in 2001 when he mixed three times the usual amount of lye crystals with water, poured that down a clogged floor drain, and it splashed back.