McDonald’s Is Sued Over Assault

A 28-year-old Simi Valley woman has sued McDonald’s Corp., contending that it should have prevented a man from punching her in the face after she asked him to stop smoking in the no-smoking section of the hamurger chain’s Studio City outlet.

Sherman Oaks attorney Charles Alpert, who filed suit Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of Cathy Ewing, asserted that the incident occurred “because McDonald’s did not enforce its no-smoking policy.” Alpert said McDonald’s managers should have told his client’s assailant to put out his cigarette without his having to be asked to do so by another patron.

2 Black Eyes

The attack, which left Ewing with two black eyes, resulted in the conviction of David Webster of Studio City for assault with force likely to bring great bodily harm and assault with a deadly weapon-his hands. Webster was convicted Feb. 5 in San Fernando Municipal Court. He is scheduled to be sentenced March 12.

Alpert compared his client’s lawsuit to suits brought by injured survivors and heirs of victims of the July 8 shooting massacre at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro. Those suits allege that the company did not take measures against crime in the area.

McDonald’s spokesman Robert Keyser said comparing the San Ysidro killings to a smoker’s assault of a nonsmoker is “absurd, just absurd.” McDonald’s attorneys had not yet reviewed the Ewing suit, Keyser said Tuesday from the company’s headquarters in Oakbrook, Ill. But Keyser said, “I’ve never, never heard of anything like this.”

The suit, which asserts that McDonald’s “carelessly and negligently owned, operated, controlled and maintained its restaurant in a dangerous and unhealthful condition by failing to enforce its no-smoking policy,” asks for $15,000 in general damages and medical and other related expenses for Ewing, and unspecified damages for loss of companionship for her husband, William.

Stopped for Hamburgers

Cathy Ewing said the incident occurred July 5 when she and her sister, Bonnie White, then 20, stopped at the McDonald’s at 11970 Ventura Blvd. for hamburgers.

“It was a gorgeous day and we thought we’d stop and get a Coke and a burger. We’re both nonsmokers and we like to eat without all the smoke around us,” Cathy Ewing said. “There was this big no-smoking sign and Webster was sitting right next to the sign. He was with a woman. We didn’t want to bother him and we went to the farthest table away from him, but the smoke was coming right toward us.

“And I went up to him, and said, ‘You’re sitting in the nonsmoking section, sir,’ and I pointed to the sign. And he said, ‘It shouldn’t bother you,’ and told me to leave him alone.”

Then, Ewing said, she approached a person she described as a McDonald’s manager whose name she does not recall and complained about Webster’s smoking. Shortly afterward, Webster and a woman walked out of the restaurant. Ewing said the woman, Gwenn Hamilton, poured a Coke over Bonnie White’s head on her way out.

“I went out after her, out the door and said, ‘You can’t do that to people,’ ” Ewing said. She said that’s when Webster hit her. In his trial, Webster testified that he thought Ewing was going to hit Hamilton, said Terry Kennedy, the deputy Los Angeles city attorney who prosecuted the case against Webster.

Efforts to reach Webster, who Kennedy said has been freed on bail, or his attorney, who is with the Los Angeles County public defender’s office, were unsuccessful.

“She looked pretty bad,” said Kennedy of Ewing’s condition after the assault. “She had bleeding underneath the skin and what in boxing parlance is called a mouse, a very puffy area beneath the eyes. The right eye was closed and the eyebrow was knocked off.”

But is the McDonald’s Corp. to blame?

Alpert, Ewing’s attorney, asserts it is.

Called Justified

He said the suit is as justified as the suits against McDonald’s after the San Ysidro incident, in which 21 people were killed and 19 were wounded when James Oliver Huberty walked into one of the restaurants and shot them. Suits have been filed alleging that McDonald’s failed to take precautions against crime in the San Ysidro area and therefore shared responsibility for what happened. The suits are pending.

Alpert said McDonald’s employees were responsible for telling Webster to move to the smoking section or put out his cigarette.

“McDonald’s employees are constantly cleaning tables and they knew or should have known that he was violating their policy,” Alpert said.