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A PIECE OF metal wire in a plate of coq au vin could cost award-winning French chef Daniel Boulud dearly: a jury has fined one of his restaurants €1.2 million after a diner swallowed it and needed emergency surgery.
The customer, Barry Brett, went with his wife in February 2015 to db Bistro Moderne on West 44th Street in midtown Manhattan, not far from Times Square.
It is one of several Boulud restaurants in the Big Apple, opening in 2001 and known for its gourmet burgers.
Shortly after he began eating, Brett felt a foreign object lodged in his throat and had to leave the restaurant, according to court documents seen by AFP.
The wire eventually caused a potentially fatal infection, his lawyers argued.
The surgeon said the 2.5-centimetre wire had come from a cheap grill brush.
A New York jury ruled last week that the restaurant had been negligent, awarding Brett $300,000 and fining the restaurant an additional $1 million in punitive damages. Another $11,000 went to Brett’s wife.
JP Bottari, a lawyer for the restaurant, said he planned to appeal.
“This was not intentional,” he said, adding that Brett had waited four days to go to the hospital.
Brett’s lawyer Elizabeth Eilender said she was “very pleased that the jury recognised how seriously injured Mr Brett was as result of that brush and how dangerous it is for a wire brush to be used around food”.
“The restaurant never wanted to take responsibility for what happened and blamed the victim,” she said.
Boulud has made New York his hub since the 1980s, but also runs restaurants in Boston, Las Vegas, London, Miami, Montreal, Palm Beach, Singapore, Toronto and Washington.
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The cream crackers?
Guess whos at it again? It all happening in Wexford this week , money cars and drug seizures, the boys will be like divils.
@Dáithí O Raghailaigh: alriiiii saaaaan
Aside from the fact that Clonegal is not even in Wexford it’s also 25km away from Enniscorthy. Some great journalism on display here
@Paul Howlin: in fairness, for some bizarre reason, the official postal address is Clonegal, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, even though the village itself is in Carlow. And many Clonegal people who don’t want to give the impression they live in a different county give their address as Clonegal, Enniscorthy, Co. Carlow….which looks even more bizarre.
Then on top of all that, you could be living in a townsland two miles away, that’s actually in Co. Wicklow….so despite living in Wicklow, your official address would be (townsland name, Wicklow), Clonegal (in Carlow), Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford.
Now that they have their ethnic status they can do as they please. We should embrace the travelling community and learn from them as they have a lot to offer us like items for sale in puk fair etc boss.
@Jumperoo: It’s not bizarre at all. Post for Clonegal is delivered from Enniscorthy District Sorting Unit (DSU). It happens all over the country where mail for an address actually in one county, gets delivered by a postman working out of a DSU in an adjoining county mainly due to its proximity!
Clonegal is in Carlow
@Joe Murphy: whats 5klm between friends ?
@Joe Murphy: Wonder why they’d take this vermin to baltinglass. What did Wicklow do to deserve this lot.
@Dáithí O Raghailaigh: more like 25km mate
.. is that because the local boyos lost the big boyos stuff in the past week or so ..
have your say