Fryer oil
PITTSBURGH – An insurance company has gone to court to recoup the millions of dollars it spent on a fire with a strange cause that destroyed an Allegheny County banquet hall.
Owners Insurance Company is suing Sysco, the maker of cooking oil that spontaneously combusted in a pile of rags and burned down Futules’ Harmar House in Cheswick in August 2023.
The rags had been used to clean the food preparation area and became soaked with Sysco soybean and canola oils. After a run through the washing machine and dryer, the oil remained, says a lawsuit filed Aug. 15 in Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas.
They were folded and placed in a laundry basket.
“Because the recently laundered kitchen towels still contained unsaturated fatty acid residue from the oil, they were capable of self-heating, and did self-heat, to the point of spontaneous combustion and ignition,” the complaint says.
Owners said it paid close to $2.4 million as a result of the damage done by the fire. The lawsuit says Sysco failed to provide sufficient warnings about the oil catching fire.
Also named as a defendant is Ventura Foods, which sold the oil. The lawsuit cites a 1992 warning from the Consumer Products Safety Commission regarding the laundering of kitchen towels soaked with cooking oil.
The owner of Harmar House, Nicholas Futules, has been a member of the Allegheny County Council since his election in 2007. A year after the fire, he introduced legislation for an education program about spontaneous combustion in oily rags.
A pamphlet from the Food Safety Program now urges kitchen staff to spread oily rags flat in safe areas like driveways and to soak them in water with detergent before washing.
Owners is represented by Richard Schuster of Matthiesen, Wickert & Lehrer in Wisconsin, plus Pittsburgh lawyers Jason Schiffman and David Langsam.
