SOUTHEAST TEXAS RECORD

If you order two or more items, you can get a medium two-topping pizza, eight pieces of chicken, an oven-baked sandwich, pasta, and/or stuffed cheesy bread for just $5.99 each from any participating Domino's. A large, 14-inch pizza will only set you back 12 bucks. 

There's no denying that pizza's a well-rounded meal, and with prices like that you can bet there'll be more than one Super Bowl fan in Texas ordering home delivery from Domino's this Sunday. Those who do can expect to be as stuffed as a fully inflated football before the halftime show – for less than $20 (tip included) and without having to leave home.

Things might be different for the next Super Bowl, however.

Next year, the Domino's drivers who deliver those mouth-watering pizzas so promptly-- in cars they own themselves and maintain at their own expense – may find that they're now required to drive much more expensive late-model vehicles with dash cams and black-box monitoring systems, have them inspected and upgraded frequently, and carry a corporate safety advisor and a corporate attorney as passengers on each delivery – so that the former can provide real-time comments on the driving practices and the latter can consider the possible legal implications.

What would a pizza delivered under those conditions cost? Not twelve bucks, that's for sure, much less $5.99. Suffice it to say, that delivery would cease to be an option long before it became expensive enough to cover all these add-ons.

Do we exaggerate? Perhaps. Still, some lawsuits against Domino's seem to suggest that such “precautions” should be standard operating procedure.

A $32 million judgment following a fatal car accident involving a delivery driver for a Beaumont franchisee is a case in point. He was driving his own car, with worn tires in bad weather, but Domino's was assigned most of the blame.

For the sake of pizza lovers everywhere, let's hope the Texas Ninth Court of Appeals reaches a more reasonable decision.

1/26/15