Denny's Inc. is being sued by a man who says he was eating at one of the dining chain's restaurants near downtown Los Angeles in 2018 when he was stabbed by a homeless man.
Ralph Martinez maintains in his Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that Denny's management was aware of previous assaults at the location. He alleges negligence, premises liability, assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
A Denny's representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the complaint brought Friday. The plaintiff is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
According to his court papers, Martinez was having dinner alone at the Denny's in the 800 block of South Figueroa Street on June 24, 2018, when a homeless man entered the location and ``immediately began making racial slurs at other customers and began harassing the other customers."
The homeless man then approached Martinez and began hitting him before stabbing him several times with a knife, according to the lawsuit.
"At no point in time did defendant's staff intervene or even ask or escort the homeless man to leave," the suit says.
Denny's did not have any security guards at the restaurant even though management knew of previous violent incidents there, the suit alleges.
