In Illinois, a lawsuit was recently filed in the Cook County Circuit Court over burns that a women received when a dish of chili con queso spilled on her legs. She was in the car, on the way home from the restaurant, when the incident occurred. The woman says that the high temperature of the food was unreasonable, and that is the basis for her suit.
The lawsuit is technically against Nando Corp., which was operating as an establishment known as Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant. There are multiple locations in and around Chicago and in Indiana.
The woman bought both tacos and chili con queso at the restaurant, according to the suit. She was the passenger in a car that her boyfriend was driving. She apparently put the tacos down near her feet, but she was nervous that the queso would spill, so she held it with her legs, in her lap. It was in a paper bag.
As she’d feared, the queso did spill on the drive home, even though she was holding it, she claims. It quickly dissolved the bag that kept it from her legs, and it penetrated the blue jeans that she was wearing, soaking into the fabric.
In addition to blistering and redness, the woman claims that she got third degree and second degree burns from the sauce. This area got infected, and she also had to use skin grafts to repair the damage. The suit claims that 9.5 percent of the woman’s body was burned in the incident. She says this gave her medical bills that surpass $63,000.
People have a right not to suffer through serious personal injury accidents on account of the food that they buy, something that can get to be incredibly expensive when extensive medical care is needed.
Source: The Cook County Record, “Woman blames Mexican restaurant for leg burns, claims its chili con queso was “unreasonably hot”” Bethany Krajelis, Aug. 05, 2014