A Massachusetts family is suing Panera after their daughter, who has a peanut allergy, was served a grilled cheese sandwich with a dollop of peanut butter inside.
The case, which was filed last week in Middlesex Superior Court, alleges that the restaurant acted negligently when an employee knowingly put peanut butter in the sandwich, AP reported. The girl’s father, John Russo, said his wife, Elissa, ordered the grilled cheese online Jan. 28, and reiterated twice that because of peanut allergies there should be no nut products inside the sandwich, the Boston Globe reported.
Russo told the Globe that after his six-year-old daughter had a bite of the sandwich, they realized there was peanut butter in the middle. After throwing up, the child was taken to the hospital where she stayed overnight.
Following the incident, Russo told the paper he called the manager of the Natick, Mass., restaurant, and was told that an employee with limited English, likely read the request and thought the family wanted peanut butter in the sandwich.
Jonathan Yohannan, a Panera spokesman, said in a statement to USA TODAY, that the company takes "issue of food allergens, including the reported incident at our franchise bakery-cafe, very seriously."
He said that the company has procedures to minimize exposure and risk to guests, and noted that Panera does not comment on pending litigation.
And while Panera does have a disclaimer on its website that the company "cannot guarantee" any food items are free of allergens because employees use shared equipment, Russo's lawyer, Mary Vargas of Maryland and Laurel Francoeur of Woburn, told the Globe this isn't a "cross contamination case."
“There was a lot of peanut butter on this sandwich,” Vargas told the Globe.
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