Taco-Eating Contest Turns Tragic As Family Sues Team For Dad’s Death

The family of a man who died after choking during a taco-eating contest at a minor league baseball game in 2019 is now suing the team and organizers of the event for negligence that allowed for his death.

The lawsuit was filed in California, and alleges that 41-year-old Dana Hutchings was not made aware of the risks and dangers involved with entering the competition, the Associated Press reports. Hutchings died after choking on tacos during the contest at a Fresno Grizzlies baseball game on Aug. 13, 2019, where he and other participants were told to eat as many tacos as they possibly could during an allotted amount of time.

The suit, brought by his 18-year-old son Marshall Hutchings, claims that while professional competitive eaters are able to train for similar events, amateur contests do not have the same regulations and safety protocols in place, which makes the organizers of the contest responsible for Dana’s death.

“[But] that is not always present in an amateur eating contest,” attorney Martin Taleisnik said, “The conductors of this event should have made the risks known to the competitors and taken steps to protect them.”

The lawsuit names Fresno Sports and Events, which owns the Grizzlies team.

According to Your Central Valley, a Fresno central-local news website, the 8-page suit also claims that the organizers didn’t have the experience to carry out the competition and also provided a medical response team that could have initiated lifesaving procedures.

It was also noted that alcohol was available during the game, which contributed to the risk.

The amount Hutchings is suing for remains undisclosed, but Taleisnik defended the suit as only a partial help in dealing with his father’s passing.

“It’s the only way you can potentially compensate somebody for the loss of a loved one, it’s not a very good compensation in the big picture however it’s one of the only ways it can be achieved,” he said.

Hutchings isn’t the first to file a similar lawsuit, with many that have been filed by consumers seen as opportunistic making headlines in recent years. Speaking to Marketwatch in 2017, Susan Schnieder, a law professor and the director of the Agricultural and Food Law program at the University of Arkansas School of Law said that while monetary amounts may be awarded in some cases, many times the lawsuits were about holding the food and dining industry accountable for actions that weren’t always ethical.

“That’s a way of keeping an industry honest so they don’t get by with just nickeling and diming people and making a lot of money on it,” she said at the time.

Similar lawsuits which saw paydays included a Florida woman winning $100,000 against Starbucks in 2017 after suffering burns when she spilled a hot coffee on herself in 2014, and a 79-year-old woman who spilled coffee from McDonalds on herself in 1982 initially being awarded $2.9 million by a jury, though she only took home $500,000 in the end.

A Massachusetts man also filed suit in 2017 against Dunkin Donuts for putting a butter substitute on a bagel instead of actual butter. That case ended with a $90,000 settlement.