Posted on Fri, Jun. 10, 2005
Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. – Two state troopers who contracted hepatitis A from a meal at a Chi-Chi’s Mexican restaurant in Beaver may not collect benefits under a state program that covers police officers disabled in the line of duty, a court ruled Friday.
The troopers were among more than 650 people who became ill after eating meals containing infected green onions at the Beaver Valley Mall restaurant in fall 2003. Four people died.

Troopers Richard Davy and Nicholas Loffredo, based in Lamar, continued to work after dinner on Oct. 6, 2003, but because their sergeant did not want them to accrue overtime, they submitted time cards indicating they stopped working at 4 p.m., according to court documents.
A Commonwealth Court panel ruled 2-1 that eating dinner is not an “obligatory task, conduct, service or function” of their police duties, and therefore they were not entitled to state Heart and Lung Act benefits, which pay full salary for those disabled in the line of duty. They did receive worker’s compensation payments for time they spent recuperating, according to the decision.
In the dissent, Senior Judge Jim Flaherty called it “shameful for the state police to ask the troopers to misrepresent their hours on their time sheet and then attempt to use that misrepresentation to bolster their argument that the troopers’ injuries were not work-related.”
The troopers’ lawyer, Ian Blynn, was not available for comment late Friday afternoon, according to his office.