Suit Says Infant Was Burned By Spilled Hot Coffee

The plaintiffs in a personal injury suit alleging that hot coffee was spilled on an infant at a St. Louis Bread Co. store have filed a motion to compel the defendants to comply with discovery.

A motion filed on August 11 in Missouri’s St. Clair County court asks that the court require that defendants Daniel Williams and Panera Bread Company Inc., the owner of the store, hand over answers. The plaintiffs claim the answers they had previously requested were improper and filled with objections.

Said answers had been obtained under a prior order to compel signed by St. Clair County Associate Judge Vincent Lopinot on July 29.

The suit was filed by Jatonya Hopkins and her husband Larry Hopkins Sr., naming the Bread Company and Williams, an employee of the store, as defendants. The suit claims their infant son, Larry Hopkins Jr., suffered burn injuries due to the defendants’ negligence.

The suit alleges that as Jatonya Hopkins was taking her son out of his car seat, Williams brought her the coffee she ordered after she had told him not to. The coffee was placed on the table behind her, the table was jarred, and the coffee spilled on the child, according to the suit.

The couple has filed suit for the alleged disfigurement, pain, suffering, mental anguish, and lost normal life their son experienced and the medical costs the couple incurred.