Popular Texas barbecue restaurant chain Bill Miller is facing a $1 million lawsuit from a Texas teenager who says she suffered second-degree burns from the hot sauce in her breakfast taco order.
Genesis Monita, 19, and her sister were on their way to school in May 2023, when they stopped to order breakfast, slathered in the restaurants famed hot barbecue sauce, at a Bill Miller restaurant in San Antonio ahead of their school day, according to court filings seen by Fox San Antonio.
After being handed their food in the drive-thru, the pair drove to the parking lot to chow down.
However, when Monita took the tacos out of the bag, she came into contact with a scalding hot container of barbeque sauce. Caught in a panic, the teen suddenly dropped it.
As the sauce fell it spilled over her thigh and left second-degree burns, Monita’s lawsuit, as seen by the outlet, alleges.
Monita, who happens to work in hospitality herself, is suing the chain for negligence and is seeking $1,000,000 in damages.
The trial began in the Lone State State this week with closing arguments set to being on Friday.
In the suit, Monita calls the restaurant negligent as she says she was handed the scalding hot sauce without any prior warning of its temperature, Bill Miller is also accused of not training staff to accurately check the sauce’s temperature and for giving it to her in an unsuitable container, as per the Fox affiliate.
Testifying in court Thursday, Monita and her mother, described how the burns had led to work and school absences plus an onset of loneliness and depression.
But in the cross-examination, Bill Miller’s attorneys reminded Monita that upon learning of the incident, the restaurant sent her a check for her medical bills, offered to clean her car, and cover any lost wages from work absence – discretions that she reportedly declined, said Fox SA.
When they asked her whether she wanted more compensation, she reportedly said “No, just what the jury thinks is fair”, said the outlet.
The restaurant attorneys stressed that the teen never returned to her medical clinic after the first consultation and has retained her job.
Her defense stated that she would take the stand Friday while Bill Miller attorneys would retire their case.
The case falls in tandem with a similar incident that occurred in July 2021 in San Jose California involving a woman who sued local restaurant Coup de Thai in Los Gatos after she claimed a Dragon Balls dish resulted in a severe reaction.
It states that prior to receiving the dish, she requested the chef make her dish with less spice as it had been advertised as spicy.
But according to the March 7 2023 complaint seen by The Independent, as Harjasleen Walia, a neurologist, started to eat the dish, she immediately “felt her entire mouth, the roof of her mouth, her tongue, her throat, and her nose burn like fire.”
Desperately, she begged the servers to fetch her yogurt to compensate for the excruciating heat, but she “began to lose her voice” and the incident resulted in her later being diagnosed “with a chemical burn to both vocal cords, a chemical burn to the middle concha of the right nostril and a chemical burn to the esophagus”, stated the complaint.
Walia is taking the case to jury trial on 25 August later this year, according to the Santa Clara court records.
