HOUSTON – A woman has filed a lawsuit alleging negligence and defamation stemming from an injury at Alicia's Mexican Grill Restaurant in 2021. She claims that an email from a false witness significantly reduced her compensation offer from $800,000 to $100,000.
Plaintiff Donna J. Terry filed the lawsuit in the Harris County Circuit Court against Sandra K. Lange and King & Spalding, LLP, citing negligence, tortious interference, interference with economic expectation, intentional tort, vicarious liability, and secreting evidence.
According to the lawsuit, on Feb. 5, 2021, Terry was a patron of Alicia's Mexican Grill Restaurant in Cypress with her family. She claims that while she was on the premises, she went to the bathroom, where she slipped on the wet floor, fell, and hit her head on the wall. Terry states that the impact caused a gash on her head, approximately two inches long. After being discovered in the restroom by her family, emergency medical services were contacted, and Terry was transported by ambulance to the Memorial/Hermann Hospital emergency room.
The lawsuit states that following the accident, counsels for the plaintiff and Alicia's Restaurant initially agreed to a settlement of $800,000 in compensatory damages for Terry's injuries.
According to the lawsuit, on June 18, 2021, approximately four months after the incident, defendant Lange, an employee of King & Spalding, LLP, allegedly wrote emails to Alicia's legal department falsely claiming to be an eyewitness to the incident and allegedly created a false narrative of the incident, repudiating Terry's account of the incident. These emails were published and examined by Alicia's legal counsel. The lawsuit states that Lange crafted this email to "intentionally inflict severe and ongoing emotional distress and totally baseless libel and defamation" on Terry. As a result of Lange's purportedly false email, Alicia's legal counsel decreased their offer of $800,000 in compensation to $100,000.
The lawsuit states that Lange's email to Alicia's legal team was not discovered by Terry or her attorneys until June 27, 2022, more than a full year after Lange initially sent the email to Alicia's legal counsel. The lawsuit argues that since Terry was not made aware of the email until that date, the one-year statute of limitations for prosecuting a claim of defamation should be extended to June 26, 2024, under the two-year Common-Law Discovery rule.
The plaintiff is seeking damages in the amount of $1,700,000 for the financial expectation of $700,000, psychological damages, pain, suffering, interest, court costs, attorneys fees and any other relief the court deems proper. She is representing herself in this case.
Harris County Circuit Court case number 2023-62028