Woman in China scalded with hot water over bad restaurant review gets $47,000 in compensation

ZHEJIANG - A restaurant in Wenzhou, eastern China, was ordered on Thursday (Nov 3) to pay 237,000 yuan (S$47,000) to a woman who suffered severe burns after a waiter poured hot water over her head, Sina reported.

The incident happened at Mr Hotpot, a restaurant in Wenzhou in August 2015.

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The woman, surnamed Lin, was eating at the restaurant with friends and family, including her mother and her seven-month-old son.

She asked the waiter, surnamed Zhu, to add hot soup to their pot, but he failed to do so. When she asked a second time, he told her that the pot did not need topping up.

Unhappy at his response, she immediately posted a complaint about the restaurant's service on microblogging site Weibo and tagged the Weibo account of one of the restaurant's shareholders.

Zhu found out about the negative review and confronted Lin. When Lin refused to remove the review, he returned with a pot of hot water and poured it over her head.

He also pulled Lin from her chair and rained blows on her. Zhu gave Lin a forceful kick even as shocked customers and waiters pulled him away from her.

Lin was admitted to the intensive care unit with severe scalds to 42 per cent of her body.

The incident was captured in a video.

Zhu, 17 at the time, was sentenced to 22 months in jail. His youth was considered in the sentencing.

Lin had asked for about 570,000 yuan in compensation, but the court found that the restaurant had paid for some of Lin's medical fees and thus reduced the compensation.

This article was first published on Nov5, 2016.
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