First to Name Restaurant Manager as a Defendant
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 3, 2004
VERNON HILLS— Today a third lawsuit was filed against the company that owns the Vernon Hills Chili’s restaurant where last summer hundreds of people were sickened as a result of a salmonella outbreak that a Lake County Health Department report recently linked to “fecal/oral contamination of multiple food items” sold there. The lawsuit, filed in Lake County Superior Court, is the first to name Chili’s manager Matt Barbknecht as a defendant, along with Brinker Restaurant Corporation, owner of the Vernon Hill Chili’s.
The Seattle food-safety law firm, MARLER CLARK, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Angela Bond, a 27-year-old Lake Bluff resident who is a medical student at The Chicago Medical School in North Chicago, Illinois. SALVI, SCHOSTOK & PRITCHARD, the well-respected Lake County law firm, is co-counsel counsel in the case. Together, these firms represent the majority of the outbreak victims.
“We have never before named a restaurant manager as a defendant like this,” said Denis Stearns, the MARLER CLARK partner handling the Chili’s outbreak litigation. “But we thought it was important to underline the message that this outbreak was, as the health department has said, the result of “poor judgment”. A decision was made to continue operating the restaurant despite not having hot water for one day, and no water for part of a second day. The person who made this decision should be held responsible, along with the restaurant’s owner, for the damage that resulted.”
Continue reading THIRD FOOD-POISONING LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST CHILI’S on the Marler Clark website.