Posts Tagged ‘restaurants’

Deceased Austin lawyer probed over demand letters to restaurants

Prominent Austin, Texas lawyer and judicial candidate Mina Brees, who died Aug. 7, is the target of a probe by the state’s attorney general after sending scores of letters to Houston and Dallas area restaurants advising them that their business name registrations had expired and that they could buy them back by dealing with her at a cost of $20,000 or $25,000 each. The letters informed them that a client, Chicksports Inc., had taken possession of the names, but did not mention that she herself was the president of Chicksports or that it operated from the address of her solo-practice law firm. The Texas Restaurant Association had advised its members not to pay and said under state law lapses in name registrations do not deprive restaurants of their legal rights to their distinctive names. Brees had been on strained terms with a famous son, NFL quarterback Drew Brees. [Mike Tolson, Houston Chronicle/KHOU, Austin American-Statesman, more Houston Chronicle, Tex Parte, DeadSpin] Per the Austin American-Statesman, “Brees received the Austin Bar Association’s 2005 professionalism award for legal ethics and professionalism.”

There’s a latex finger cot in my food

Every time a headline comes up along the lines of “Man sues eatery after claiming to find a condom in his soup” — and they come up fairly regularly — I am put in mind of the existence of “finger cots”, small objects made of latex or similar material and often worn by food handlers over individual fingers as an anti-contamination measure. If I were a journalist covering such a dispute, I’d want to ask both sides whether they had ruled out for sure the possibility that the object in dispute was a food handler’s finger cot. Wouldn’t you?

Sacramento’s “Squeeze Inn” hit with ADA suit

squeezed by a bad lawThe popular eatery, which has been spotlighted by the Food Network show “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives”, is famous for being cramped, as its name implies. So here comes the inevitable wheelchair-access suit by a plaintiff represented by serial Northern California ADA-suit filer Jason Singleton. [California Civil Justice, Popehat; restaurant site] More on Singleton’s activities: North Coast Journal cover story, 2001, and May 2008 coverage. Update: restaurant now planning to move.

Domino’s sued in murder of deliveryman

Springfield, Mass.: The parents’ suit charges that the chain wrongfully sent Corey Lind out to deliver pizza to dangerous and unknown addresses; he was ambushed and murdered in 2007. Noteworthy angle:

According to the suit, prior to 2000 Domino’s had a policy of not making or of limiting deliveries to certain areas.

As a result of discrimination claims against the company, the federal Department of Justice investigated the policy. The result was an agreement between the government and Domino’s establishing procedures Domino’s could use to limit or stop deliveries to certain areas based on safety.

The suit said that Domino’s required all stores to implement a Limited Delivery Service Policy which, among other things, would evaluate each store’s delivery and service area and provide for the safety of delivery workers.