Restaurants Suits

GB Foods Corp. filed suit Thursday against the parent company of the Carl's Jr. fast-food chain, alleging misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of contract and seeking more than $100 million in damages. In the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, GB Foods, parent of the Green Burrito restaurant chain, alleges that Anaheim-based CKE Restaurants Inc. copied GB Foods' concept when it launched Picante Grill, an addition of Mexican-style menu items at a Carl's Jr.

A woman who claims she was permanently scarred after a hot pickle from a McDonald's hamburger fell on her chin is suing the restaurant for $110,000. Veronica M. Martin claims in a lawsuit filed in Knox County Circuit Court in Knoxville, Tenn., that the burn also caused her physical and mental pain. Her husband, Darrin, is seeking $15,000 for being "deprived of the services and consortium of his wife." In 1994, a New Mexico woman was awarded $2.

U.S. government officials and civil rights advocates, hailing a "new partnership" dedicated to weeding out racism in commercial establishments, announced a record $54.4-million discrimination settlement with the Denny's restaurant chain Tuesday. The settlement, which earmarks $28 million for victims of discrimination at California Denny's restaurants, closes the book on two class-action lawsuits that became a modern version of the lunch-counter protests of the civil rights movement's early days.

In a case held up by their attorneys as emblematic of pervasive exploitation in the service industry, eight former employees of a Koreatown restaurant filed a lawsuit Wednesday, alleging they had been subjected to long hours and poor working conditions while earning sub-minimum wages. Lawyers for the plaintiffs stressed that the complaint is not unique but rather just one instance of the widespread mistreatment of low-wage immigrant service workers.

U.S. government officials and civil rights advocates, hailing a "new partnership" dedicated to weeding out racism in commercial establishments, announced a record $54.4-million discrimination settlement with the Denny's restaurant chain Tuesday. The settlement, which earmarks $28 million for victims of discrimination at California Denny's restaurants, closes the book on two class-action lawsuits that became a modern version of the lunch-counter protests of the civil rights movement's early days.

Denny's restaurants were accused Wednesday in a federal class-action lawsuit of imposing cover charges on black patrons, forcing them to pay in advance and other acts of discrimination. The suit charged that Denny's also had refused service to some African-Americans, subjected them to derogatory remarks and refused to honor their requests for its free "birthday meal" offer.

A judge on Friday refused to dismiss a lawsuit against Denny's that adds to the growing list of racial discrimination allegations made by customers of the national restaurant chain. U.S District Judge James Ware reached his decision one day after the parent company of Denny's promised to generate $1 billion in minority business opportunities over seven years.

In a new allegation of racial discrimination at Denny's, five San Diego African-Americans--including a Navy officer and a Democratic Party official--have filed a $10-million federal discrimination lawsuit against two Southland restaurants. The suit, filed Thursday in U.S District Court in Santa Ana, charges that employees at Denny's in Costa Mesa and San Diego denied "African-American citizens the ability to use and enjoy public accommodations on the same basis as white persons."

Nineteen people, including a former NBC creative executive and crew members from the TV show "Frasier," were awarded $431,000 by a jury which concluded that Jerry's Famous Deli in Studio City sent them contaminated turkey takeout that sickened them with salmonella. Lawyers had sought as much as $1.5 million in compensatory damages for pain and suffering, medical costs and lost wages.

An Orange County nurse who bit into a chicken burrito and chewed on a bloody bandage sued Wahoo's Fish Tacos in Lake Forest, where a part-owner of the chain on Friday apologized and called it "a mistake that shouldn't have happened." In a lawsuit filed this week, Anne Wutschke said she and her husband had gone to Wahoo's in November, 1994, and she "was eating the burrito [when] she felt a foreign substance in her mouth.

Twin Palms restaurant in Newport Beach, which has been involved in a running battle with the nearby Four Seasons Hotel over noise, has shut its doors to the general public and will close permanently at the end of January. The trendy French bistro, which featured live music that drew complaints from hotel guests, will host only private parties until it vacates the site Jan. 31, the restaurant said Monday.

Five black customers have filed a discrimination lawsuit against a Denny's restaurant, saying they were seated behind a partition and ignored by waitresses. The restaurant chain denied any wrongdoing. The five filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Orlando, WESH-TV reported. The black customers said they were ignored while several customers came in and were served. When the black customers were finally served, their waitress got their order wrong.

Nineteen people, including a former NBC creative executive and crew members from the TV show "Frasier," have been awarded $431,000 by a jury, which concluded that Jerry's Famous Deli in Studio City sent them contaminated turkey takeout that sickened them with salmonella. Lawyers had asked for as much as $1.5 million in compensatory damages for pain and suffering, medical costs and lost wages.

Nineteen people, including a former NBC creative executive and crew members from the TV show "Frasier," were awarded $431,000 by a jury which concluded that Jerry's Famous Deli in Studio City sent them contaminated turkey takeout that sickened them with salmonella. Lawyers had sought as much as $1.5 million in compensatory damages for pain and suffering, medical costs and lost wages.

The on-again, off-again lawsuit filed against the Southern California El Pollo Inka restaurant chain for alleged labor violations is on again, after a federal judge allowed attorneys for former employees to file an amended complaint. U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins early last month had dismissed the suit, in which three former waiters accused the chain of paying them only tips and no hourly wages or overtime, after their attorneys failed to show up for a scheduled court hearing.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing the owners of the El Pollo Inka restaurant chain of exploiting their immigrant workers after attorneys for those employees failed to show up for a scheduled court hearing. Lawyers for the former waiters blame a procedural mix-up and vow that the case will go forward, attorney Christopher Nicoll said.

Cora Miller was fired for a song. Her second day at a Chi-Chi's Mexican restaurant turned out to be her last, she said, when she refused to sing one of the most popular tunes in the world to a lunchtime customer--"Happy Birthday." Miller is a Jehovah's Witness, and celebrating birthdays, even the birth of Christ, violates the rules of her religion. None of that seemed to matter to the manager of the Chi-Chi's restaurant in Clinton, she said. "He said, 'I can't use you,' " recalled Miller, 43.

Twin Palms restaurant in Newport Beach, which has been involved in a running battle with the nearby Four Seasons Hotel over noise, has shut its doors to the general public and will close permanently at the end of January. The trendy French bistro, which featured live music that drew complaints from hotel guests, will host only private parties until it vacates the site Jan. 31, the restaurant said Monday.

Did the owners of a popular string of Peruvian restaurants work their immigrant employees up to 14 hours a day for no pay? Or were they simply the victims of some lousy lawyering? The fate of the family-owned El Pollo Inka restaurant chain may depend on the answer, after a federal judge this week awarded three former waiters at the Southland chicken restaurants $1.1 million in back wages and damages. U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins entered the judgment Monday after El Pollo Inka Inc.

Morton's Restaurant Group said it will take a fourth-quarter pretax charge of at least $1.1 million after a federal jury in California awarded damages to a former employee of the restaurant chain.