CITYSCAPE: Couple sues restaurant over Valentine's Day dinner
By JOYCE SMITH
Columnist

When couples go out to dinner for Valentine's Day they can rightly expect to get served steaks on their plates. But a Polo, Mo., couple says theirs was served upside the wife's head.

The couple, Tim and Donna Vogle, filed a lawsuit against several employees and owners of Dante's, a St. Joseph restaurant, after a Valentine's dinner this year.

Both sides agree the couple complained their steaks were overcooked. They part ways on what happened next.

The Vogles said Kenneth Shearing, president of Dante's, brought out raw steaks in a foam box, then took one and slapped Donna Vogle in the face. They said Shearing also used "foul, vulgar and abusive language."

The couple asked for damages for medical treatment and counseling expenses, and for punitive damages.

Stephen B. Small, attorney for Dante's, said Shearing did not hit the woman with a steak but merely gave her two free aged steaks to take home.

"These were customers that were unhappy about everything. They were unhappy about the table, they didn't like the salad dressing, now the steaks are overcooked," Small said. "They were offered free meals, free rounds of drinks. That wasn't good enough."

Small said about 300 people were in the restaurant, yet the plaintiffs' only witnesses were at their table.

"This woman has a variety of issues in her life, but getting beat up with a steak isn't one of them," Small said. "They were making claims that their sex life was diminished by 75 percent because she allegedly got slapped in the face with a steak."

Small said such frivolous lawsuits needlessly expose defendants to potentially extraordinary litigation expenses and publicity that will be bad for business.

Jeffrey L. Smith, attorney for the Vogles, said, "The matter is currently in litigation, and we believe it inappropriate to comment about these matters."

[From The Kansas City Star, 18 June 2002]