Whole Foods store in Clearwater, Fla. (Google Maps).
The parents of a Florida boy filed a lawsuit against a local Whole Foods store after the son had a severe allergic reaction to a dairy-free pizza they ordered in 2022.
The lawsuit filed in Pinellas County on Nov. 22 alleged that while the store’s employees were warned by the boy’s mother about the severity of the boy’s food allergy and anaphylactic reactions to consuming dairy, the warnings were not heeded. As a result, the pizza ordered by the boy’s mother, Lucy Lopes, had been made “half dairy-free” and “half-dairy,” according to the complaint.
The timeline of events, as outlined in the lawsuit, began on May 7, 2022, when Lopes ordered a pizza at a Whole Foods store in Clearwater, Florida. She specifically said that her son had a severe food allergy to dairy products that could result in anaphylactic shock. The suit stated that Lopes “specifically discussed with the Whole Foods staff member that the pizza had to be prepared without any dairy ingredients and that no dairy products could come into contact with the pizza, the preparation supplies, the preparations surfaces, or its packaging during preparation.” It further added that Lopes had made this “very same procedure” request at the same store on other occasions.
Lopes was apparently “assured” by the staff that any dairy products would be “kept separate” from nondairy. When she received the pizza, she was once again reassured that the pizza was dairy-free.
But according to the suit, the boy took “three bites” and promptly went into “extreme anaphylactic shock.”
Lopes “immediately applied an epi pen to provide relief from the extreme symptoms,” the lawsuit says, and called an ambulance to bring to the emergency room for further treatment. During this time, Lopes called the Whole Foods to confirm that the pizza was dairy-free and was told “shockingly” that the pizza had been prepared “half dairy-free” and “half-dairy.”
The lawsuit stated that the boy experienced “acute and severe symptoms which were life threatening and required the administration of additional medications and overnight hospitalization.” He also experienced “severe psychological harm” and became “fearful of food ingestion and distrusts assurances he receives from restaurant staff that prepared food is safe for his consumption.”
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Lopes and the boy’s father sued for negligence, stating that their son had suffered “permanent physical injuries, conscious mental anguish, and pain and suffering in the past and into the future” as a result of the store employee’s actions. The parents requested a jury trial and a sum of $50,000 or more.
Neither of the parties immediately responded to Law&Crime’s request for comment. The Miami Herald contacted the Whole Foods for a comment but a spokesperson said that the company does not comment on pending litigation. As of Dec. 3, Whole Foods has not responded to a summons dated Nov. 22.
