California diners sue over snail that 'exploded'

Two Northern California businessmen have taken a Marin County seafood restaurant to small-claims court after a snail allegedly "exploded," spraying their faces and polo shirts with hot garlic butter and ruining one man's birthday dinner.

They say legal action could have been avoided had the eatery expressed sufficient remorse.

The 59-year-old plaintiffs (photo), Chadwick St.-OHarra, an information technology executive from Danville, east of Oakland, and Steve Righetti, a Sonoma businessman who owns an automotive shop in San Rafael, are suing the Seafood Peddler, in San Rafael's historic Canal area, the Marin Independent Journal reports. The restaurant's insurance company denied the men's claim, so they headed to small-claims court, which handles cases of $7,500 or less. The escargot cost $7.99.

A trial is scheduled for Dec. 3 in Marin County, just north of San Francisco.

The plaintiffs say the incident marred Righetti's birthday dinner in June.

St.-O'Harra, a former law student, claims the vision in one eye was temporarily impaired from butter in the tear duct, while Righetti claims the side of his nose was squirted.

"I was humiliated," Righetti told the IJ. "I thought, 'Do I need this on my birthday?'"

St.-OHarra said the incident caused "a sense of genuine outrage."

"I take my friend out to dinner, and this is the experience we have," he told the paper. "It was the indifference. It was the friggin' rudeness."

St.-O'Hara and Righetti did not seek immediate medical treatment and finished their meals (a filet-and-lobster combo for St.-OHarra, the seafood medley for Righetti). They later filed a claim against the restaurant.

"We didn't do anything wrong. He made up this story," restaurant owner Al Silvestri said of St.-O'Hara. "We sell thousands of escargot a year, I've never heard of anything like this."

The IJ writes that, according to one industry veteran, "escargot explosion" is a "rare but periodic phenomenon," perhaps because "air bubbles get trapped inside the cooked mollusk."

(Posted by Michael Winter)