A Michigan family, who reportedly spent three weeks agonizing over the life of their 11-year-old daughter, has filed a US$20 million lawsuit against a “filthy” franchise location of the Wendy’s restaurant chain, which she accuses of having contaminated it.
“It’s almost a miracle that she survived (…) It was really disgusting to be frank,” lamented the family’s lawyer, Tom Worsfold, in an interview with the Michigan television station WOOD TV , according to the “New York Post” on Wednesday.
11-year-old Aspen Lamfers reportedly came close to death after stopping at the Wendy’s franchise restaurant in Ottawa County, Michigan, to order a hamburger, chicken nuggets and fries after a softball practice, August 1, 2022.
Except that three days later, she was fighting for her life with a major infection caused by E. Coli bacteria, which is believed to have evolved to attack her kidneys, pancreas and brain.
Where the problem lies is that according to an inspection report obtained by the “NY Post”, the establishment had received a visit from an inspector only a few days earlier, on July 27, who had revealed 17 violations of the health and food code.
The franchise was then deemed “dirty at the extreme end of the spectrum”, and presented “gross and unsanitary conditions throughout” the restaurant, whose “imminent health risks” required “immediate corrections”, we can read in the report shared by the American newspaper.
Moldy and rotten food, filthy cutting boards, mold due to leaks: the restaurant would then have closed its doors for a few days, the time to offer lessons on food safety practices to its staff and repair the leaks, before welcome its customers again on August 1st.
And only a few days later, during a second visit by the inspector, 12 new violations were allegedly found, including the storage of raw beef at unsafe temperatures, black mold on the floors and standing water strewn about. of dead parasites, the “NY Post” listed.
Faced with the allegations of the family, which is demanding $20 million, the Meritage Hospitality group, which owns the Wendy’s in question, would have denied “any wrongdoing or failure of our food safety practices in this matter”, insisting that it takes “very take the health and safety of our customers seriously,” he reportedly told ABC affiliate WZZM.
