A woman from Connecticut filed a lawsuit after allegedly finding parts of a severed finger in her salad. The incident occurred on April 7 at a chain establishment site in Mount Kisco, New York. Allison Cozzi, a woman from Greenwich, Connecticut, reportedly purchased a salad from Chopt Creative Salad Co. restaurant chain.
The customer was halfway through it when she became aware that she was biting into a piece of a human finger. Upon discovering a severed finger inside her salad bowl, Cozzi's traumatic experience led to a high-stake lawsuit.
Severed Finger in Chopt's Salad
(Photo : Pexels/cottonbro studio)
Based on Cozzi's lawsuit, while chopping arugula, one of the restaurant's supervisors severed a portion of her left index finger. Although the manager sought medical attention at the hospital, the previously mentioned finger piece and part of arugula were allegedly retained and included in the restaurant's salads.
As a result of eating the contaminated salad, Cozzi claimed in the lawsuit that she experienced a variety of injuries, including but not limited to physical shock, panic attacks, migraines, cognitive impairment, nausea, dizziness, and pain in her neck and shoulders.
After further investigation, on May 25, the Westchester County Health Department ordered Chopt to pay a fine of $900 for breaking state regulations designed to prevent imminent health concerns. Moreover, the woman is seeking an unspecified amount of monetary damages as compensation for the claimed carelessness of Chopt's workers.
A public statement regarding the case has not yet been issued by Chopt Creative Salad Co., a chain that owns and operates more than 70 locations in the eastern United States. As a defendant in the lawsuit, the restaurant organization known as Founders Table is also included.
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Similar Incidents in Other Restaurants
It is not the first time that diners at restaurants have discovered a body part in their food. In 2005, a guy from Ohio filed a lawsuit against Arby's seeking a sum of $50,000 after finding a piece of skin in the lettuce that was used to top his chicken sandwich. According to David Scheiding, he became ill after biting on a portion of his skin, which was around three-quarters of an inch in size.
Inspectors of the health department of Miami County, Ohio, spoke with the eatery manager, who admitted that he accidentally sliced his thumb while shredding lettuce. On the other hand, the section of the kitchen in which he had been working was meticulously cleaned and sanitized, and the lettuce that he had shredded was not thrown away.
Furthermore, a woman named Anna Ayala, who lived in Las Vegas at the time, said that she discovered a severed human finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili in the same year. After threatening legal action against the Ohio-based chain, she withdrew the lawsuit. She acknowledged that her husband, Jaime Plascencia, had acquired the finger from a colleague who had been involved in a workplace accident and had lost it. Ayala admitted that she had prepared the finger at her residence and had done it herself before adding it to the chili.
As a result of their involvement in the fraud, Alalya and Plascencia received nine years in prison in 2006. At the time of her sentencing, Ayala stated that she owed an apology to Wendy's and the employees who worked there. She noted that Wendy's had been and will continue to be the fast food restaurant of choice for her family.
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