Thursday, July 15, 2004
By Christopher Snowbeck, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The state Department of Health is asking Chi-Chi’s Inc. to pay more than $146,000 to cover costs the state incurred providing preventive shots during last fall’s hepatitis A outbreak at the chain’s Beaver Valley Mall restaurant.
In a court filing last week, the state said it provided shots of immune globulin to about 10,000 people potentially infected with hepatitis A as a result of the outbreak, the worst such event at a U.S. restaurant in history. The antibody treatment provides protection to people exposed to the virus in the past 14 days.
People who ate at the Beaver Valley Mall Chi-Chi’s between October 22 and November 2 were eligible, and a state clinic at the Beaver County Community College drew huge crowds for several days in November.
The filing came in U.S. Bankruptcy Court because Chi-Chi’s filed for bankruptcy court protection several weeks prior to the outbreak’s discovery.
The Health Department says its actions likely limited the number of people sickened with hepatitis A and, as a result, limited potential liability for Chi-Chi’s. The state is not seeking to recover the costs of notifying the public about the outbreak, nor is it seeking to recover costs for staffing clinics, according to the filing.
A spokeswoman for Chi-Chi’s did not immediately return a call for comment.
Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney representing the state, said at least one other restaurant at the center of an outbreak have covered the costs of immune globulin shots.
——————————————————————————–
(Christopher Snowbeck can be reached at csnowbeck@post-gazette.com or 412 263-2625.)