"Ordered some pizza on the new cordless phone, then the wife and I are gonna watch 'Wayne's World'. Rented it from the video store on the way home from the gym"
In 1993, in reaction to multi-million dollar settlements arising from car accidents involving its delivery drivers, Domino's ended its delivery guarantee. While the pizza maker never admitted its drivers drove unsafely in their efforts to beat the 30-minute deadline, at a 1993 news conference Domino's owner Thomas S. Monaghan said the guarantee was being dropped in an attempt to fight a "public perception of reckless driving and irresponsibility."
That perception was fueled by a couple of key lawsuits against Domino's. In 1992, the company agreed to pay $2.8 million to the family of an Indiana woman killed by one of its delivery people. The woman, 41-year-old Susan Noonan Wauchop of Calumet City, Illinois, died when a Domino's truck struck her van near the Indiana-Michigan border in 1990, an accident that also injured three of her sons and a friend. Domino's has always maintained that road and weather conditions, not the delivery time requirements, were the primary factors behind that crash.
Yet it was a case ruled upon in 1993 that rang down the curtain on the "30 minutes or it's free" guarantee. An injury to a 49-year-old St. Louis, Missouri, woman, whose car was struck by a Domino's driver in 1989, led to an award of $750,000 in actual damages and $78 million in punitive damages against the pizza company. Jean Kinder, the injured driver, had suffered injuries to her head and back after the driver of the pizza delivery vehicle ran a red light and struck her vehicle.
Domino's still offers its customers a guarantee that they will be satisfied with the product, but it is a quality guarantee rather than a time-dependent one. Says the company's Total Satisfaction Guarantee: "If for any reason you are dissatisfied with your Domino's Pizza dining experience, we will re-make your pizza or refund your money."
