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NEW CANAAN, CT — A father claims in a lawsuit his young son was badly burned by a cup of hot tea purchased from a Dunkin’ store on the Merritt Parkway in New Canaan back in 2021.
A complaint dated April 23, 2021, filed against Applegreen CT Travel Plazas, the owner of the Dunkin’ location at a service plaza on Gerdes Road, indicates New York resident Albert Lazri stopped at the store on March 27, 2021, and purchased a cup of chamomile tea for his then-6-year-old son to drink.
Lazri returned to his car and handed the cup, which contained “hot water boiled to 180 Fahrenheit temperature,” to his son, according to the complaint.
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When his son went to take a sip of the tea, the cup’s lid “immediately became detached from and fell off of the cup,” and the “extremely hot tea” fell onto the child’s legs, resulting in second-degree burns, according to the complaint.
Lazri’s son was immediately brought to a hospital, where he remained for four days, the complaint states.
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The complaint alleges the cup of tea sold to Lazri was “defective and unreasonably dangerous,” as was the cup and lid “because it contained a manufacturing or design defect that prevents the lid from properly and securely affixing to the cup to seal and protect against spills.”
The complaint further alleges the boiled hot water was filled above the cup’s “fill line” and the lid was not properly and securely affixed to the cup.
“Although the cup is 5 inches in height, the following warning is located at the bottom of the cup where it is likely to be held: ‘CAUTION: THIS BEVERAGE IS EXTREMELY HOT. DO NOT MICROWAVE.’ Therefore, Lazri did not see the warning,” the complaint states.
Lazri also incurred expenses for medical care and treatment necessary for his son’s recovery as a result of the incident, the complaint notes.
A similar complaint, dated May 6, 2024, was filed against Georgia-based business Graphic Packaging International, LLC, who the complaint lists as the manufacturer and designer of both the cup and lid.
A new request filed Nov. 15, 2024, following a number of other court actions taken between 2021 and 2024 related to the case, claims Applegreen produced photographs of the same type of cup and lid sold to Lazri in 2021, however the company did not preserve the physical items themselves.
Additionally, the request states Applegreen provided video footage from the Merritt Parkway southbound Dunkin’ store, not the northbound location where Lazri claims to have purchased the tea from.
“No video footage was ever preserved for the northbound location,” the request states.
The request accuses Applegreen of “intentional spoliation of cups, lids and video footage” and asks that a jury be made aware of this.
“Because Applegreen intentionally spoiled the evidence, jury should be instructed they may draw an inference from the intentional spoliation of evidence that the destroyed evidence would have been unfavorable to Applegreen,” the request states.
Jury selection and a trial of this case is currently scheduled to take place in early December, according to the state’s judicial branch database.
“We look forward to presenting our case to the jury in December,” Sergei Lemberg, a lawyer representing Lazri, said in an email, “and ensuring that our client receives full measure of damages.”
Lawyers representing Applegreen and Graphic Packaging could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
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