A trial in the case of a 47-year-old furrier who died 10 months after dining at Benihana, the popular Japanese steakhouse chain, opened Wednesday in Nassau Supreme Court. Jerry Colaitis of Upper Brookville, N.Y., injured his neck while attempting to dodge a piece of hot shrimp playfully tossed at him by a table-side hibachi chef, attorney Andre Ferenzo of Roslyn told the jury.
That neck injury necessitated an operation. An apparent infection forced another procedure.
Months later, Colaitis was dead of a blood-borne infection, Ferenzo told a panel of eight men and one woman. "Benihana set in motion a chain of events," the attorney said, ultimately resulting in the diner's death. The estate is seeking $10 million in damages.
Defense counsel Charles X. Connick of Mineola countered that there was no evidence that would connect the causal chain between a family dining experience in January 2001 and Colaitis' death 10 months later. Instead, Connick said, during the last year of Colaitis' life, he was stalked by a recurrent fever, gout, sinusitis and septicemia that were the more proximate causes of death.
Details here from the New York Law Journal.