Suit Alleging Condom Was Found in Customer’s Chowder Is Settled

A lawsuit filed by four women who said they found a condom in the clam chowder served to one of them at an Irvine restaurant has been settled just days before going to court.

“The case has been resolved in its entirety in a manner that is mutually acceptable to both sides,” Robert Sabahat, a lawyer representing Laila Sultan and three friends, said in a statement Monday, the day the trial was to begin in Orange County Superior Court. “The parties have chosen to resolve the matter without further court intervention. The terms of the resolution are confidential.”

Patrick Stark, an attorney for the restaurant, could not be reached for comment.

Sultan, who filed suit last year against McCormick & Schmick’s seafood restaurant in Irvine, said she didn’t know the specifics of the settlement. “All I got was an e-mail from my lawyer saying not to say anything,” she said.

Sultan, 48, has said that she was eating at the restaurant with three friends on Feb. 26, 2002, when an unwrapped, rolled-up condom stuck to her tooth.

The discovery so upset her, she said, that she spent 15 minutes vomiting in the bathroom, saw a psychiatrist for 18 months and took medications for anxiety and depression.