NEW ORLEANS, La. (Reuters) - A Louisiana woman has sued restaurant company Applebee's International Inc., charging that she found a severed fingertip in her salad.
The lawsuit -- the second filed in the United States this year involving a severed finger in restaurant food -- was filed last week in state court in Jefferson, Louisiana.
It said May Deal Chambers Johnson suffered physical and psychological harm when she discovered the object in a take-out salad from an Applebee's Neighborhood Grill and Bar in the New Orleans suburb of Jefferson in June 2004.
Applebee's spokeswoman Laurie Ellison said Tuesday the company could not comment on pending litigation.
A California woman drew national attention in March when she said she found a finger in a bowl of chili from a Wendy's International Inc. restaurant in San Jose, California.
The case was later found to be a hoax and the woman was jailed on grand theft charges, but not before Wendy's suffered a steep drop in sales.
The Louisiana legal action, which seeks unspecified damages, accuses the restaurant of unsanitary food preparation and improper training of employees, as well as "failure to prevent the inclusion of a human fingertip in a salad to go."
Johnson's attorney, Michael Darnell, of New Orleans, declined to comment on the case.
Applebee's, headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, has nearly 1,700 restaurants in 49 states and 12 countries.
In its first quarter, Wendy's was wracked by its finger case.
