Cowboys coach, wife sue eatery after finding rat in salad

[MavKikiNYC]

Not the first rat the Haleys have encountered this season either.

Cowboys coach, wife sue eatery after finding rat in salad

By MELISSA, VARGAS
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
SOUTHLAKE -- A Dallas Cowboys assistant coach filed a personal injury lawsuit Thursday against a Southlake McDonald's, alleging that his wife and au pair found a dead rat in their take-out salad in June, court documents show.
Todd Haley, his wife, Christine Haley, and their au pair, Kathryn Kelley, are suing the restaurant and its franchise owner Ken Lobato and KBL Group for a minimum of $1.7 million in physical and mental pain and anguish, alleging that the restaurant was negligent in preparing the salad and failed to have safeguards against rodents.
"We haven't seen the litigation, so we can't respond to the claims," Lobato said in a prepared statement. "Nothing is more important to us than the safety and well-being of our customers. We maintain the strictest quality standards."
The plaintiffs could not be reached for comment. Their Dallas lawyer, Cecil Casterline, did not return phone calls for comment Thursday evening.
According to the lawsuit filed in Tarrant County, Christine Haley ordered $14 worth of food, including the salad, at the drive-through at 2155 West Southlake Blvd. on June 5. She took the food home, where she and Kelley began eating out of the salad bowl. The women ate a few bites before they uncovered what they later determined to be a stiff young roof rat on its back. The women gagged and vomited repeatedly, the lawsuit alleges.
Christine Haley telephoned Lobato to complain, and he drove to her Southlake home to see the dead rodent, the lawsuit said.
"He said rather wryly that a dead rat in a salad could have happened to them at Ruth's Chris Steak House in Dallas," the lawsuit alleges. "That perverse attitude gave no comfort to [the women]."
Lobato demanded the rat, the suit says, but the women refused to give it up. Subsequent complaints to the Southlake McDonald's and corporate offices have "fallen on deaf ears," the suit states.
Common throughout Texas, roof rats are about a foot long and slender with long, scaly tails that are usually longer than their bodies, according to the Natural Science Laboratory at Texas Tech University. The rats frequent rafters of buildings and inhabit groceries in search of food. They also transmit diseases such as ratbite fever, bubonic plague and endemic typhus, according to the laboratory.
The women say they are haunted by this knowledge and fear they may have caught a disease.
"This tremendous horror translates into continuing gastric disaster," the suit states.
Since eating salad that may have touched the rat and touching the dead rodent with their forks, the women have had difficulty keeping food down and can no longer go out to eat, the lawsuit states. They are forced to prepare their food "from scratch, allowing themselves to see each ingredient placed in the dish they are cooking," the suit states.
Haley was breastfeeding her 6-month-old infant when she ate the salad and fears she may have passed the child a disease through her breast milk. She has since switched the child to formula, which caused her "mental anguish," the suit states.
A college student, Kelley has been unable to concentrate on her studies because of the trauma, the suit states.
While neither woman has tested positive for any disease, both have been in counseling for the phobia and anticipate about a year more of therapy, the suit states.
Todd Haley has suffered the "loss of consortium" -- the companionship and support of his wife -- the lawsuit states.
Lobato said the franchise is taking the complaint seriously and conducting a full investigation to get all the facts.
"In my years as an owner-operator, I've never seen anything like this," he said.