Fryer oil
PITTSBURGH – Vague accusations in a lawsuit alleging cooking oil spontaneously combusted and burned down an Allegheny County banquet hall have been tossed, but a judge has allowed the rest of the case to move forward.
Court of Common Pleas judge Chelsea Wagner on Oct. 22 struck two sentences from the complaint of Owners Insurance Company, which is seeking compensation from Sysco and Ventura Foods for the damage done to Futules’ Harmar House in Cheswick in August 2023.
Owners says it spent millions after 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.
Struck from the complaint are two allegations called boilerplate by Sysco – that it failed to provide features necessary to keep the oil safe and failed to act “in other ways” that were negligent.
But Judge Wagner overruled all other objections, which means allegations of recklessness and a claim for punitive damages remain.
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.
