Beatrice Jenkins, on behalf of herself and her young daughter, has filed a lawsuit against Merle’s #1 Barbeque, for causing the two to become ill after eating a meal that the restaurant had catered for a parent-teacher conference on February 16, as reported by the Trib Local in Evanston.
Jenkins, 45, is a part-time employee at Haven Middle School where the incident took place. She claims, in the lawsuit filed in Cook County court, that the meal made at least 28 other people sick as well.
According to the court documents, Jenkins has asked for over $50,000 in damages.
A collection of samples, taken at both the school and the restaurant by Evanston Health Department officials, showed that the bacteria, Clostridium perfringes, was present throughout.
The samples of the catered food, and food found in the restaurant, was tested by the state Department of Public Health in their Springfield lab. Evonda Thomas, the Director of the Health Department, said they were unable to give a conclusive cause of the outbreak, but, that they found unsafe food handling and temperature storage at the restaurant and the school.
The culprit – bacteria from barbeque pulled chicken – was prepared at Merle’s and then delivered to the school to serve in a “buffet style.”
Officials reported, “No temperatures were taken at the time of delivery and the food was not kept heated or refrigerated during the time it was being served.”
Mother and daughter were the first to sample the meal. It was delivered at approximately 3 p.m., left sitting in the teacher’s lounge, and then later laid out for the buffet – all without any additional heating.
Jenkins said, “I remember thinking to myself, I’ve seen a lot of food come in here and there’s always heat, I wanted to question it but I didn’t. I used to eat there a lot, so I didn’t think to question Merle’s staff, I trusted Merle’s.”
The two ate at 3:45 and within 12 hours Jenkins’ daughter, a 7th grade student at Haven, had curled up in the “fetal position” at the toilet in their home.
She complained of
diarrhea, abdominal cramping, body aches and headaches.
Jenkins herself had begun to fill ill at the same time, but she was busy attending to her daughter to notice her own symptoms escalating.
When their symptoms could no longer be ignored, Jenkins drove them both to Haven to report that neither would be in that day. She then learned that others had also reported being made ill after eating the buffet.
When Jenkins grew weaker once returning home, she said, “It scared me, there’s something about being paralyzed, having no strength and not being able to call out. Nothing like this has happened in the past.”
That’s when she made the decision to see medical attention and drove both herself and her daughter to the emergency room. They were told to push fluids while the illness ran its full course.
The bacteria illness, usually lasting only 24 hours per the Evanston Health Department, has left both mother and daughter feeling ill for two weeks so far. Jenkins’ daughter is still plagued with abdominal, head and body aches.
Drew Falkenstein, the attorney for the Jenkins’, said, “Regardless of whether the folks in school used heating implements, Merle’s had an obligation to make sure it provided heating implements to safely handle food. They’re the ones with the know-how and the experience. If there were special requirements for putting the food out, they needed to tell folks that exactly.”
Larry Huber, Merle’s owner, said, “That chicken we cooked that day and sent that day is the same chicken we served to our customers that night. We didn’t have one single phone call, e-mail or anything with anyone saying one word about feeling like we made them sick.”
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