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Actor Angie Harmon sues Instacart and its delivery driver for fatally shooting her dog
Actor Angie Harmon has filed a lawsuit against Instacart and one of its former shoppers who fatally shot her dog in March while delivering groceries at her North Carolina home.
The lawsuit filed late last week in Mecklenburg County seeks to hold the shopper and Instacart liable for accusations of trespassing, gross negligence, emotional distress and invasion of privacy, among other allegations. It accuses Instacart of engaging in negligent hiring, supervision, retention and misrepresentation. The suit seeks monetary damages, to be determined at trial.
Instacart says the shopper has since been permanently banned from its platform.
Harmon is known for her work on TV shows including “Law & Order” and “Rizolli & Isles.” She told “Good Morning America” in an interview that aired Wednesday that it was “so unfathomable to think that there is somebody in your front driveway that just fired a gun.”
“I think Instacart is beyond responsible for all of this,” Harmon said in the interview. “This didn’t have to happen.”
According to the complaint, Harmon ordered an Instacart groceries delivery from a Charlotte store on March 30. The Instacart app showed a shopper named Merle with a profile photo of an older woman, with whom Harmon believed she was exchanging text messages about her order, the lawsuit says.
Later that day, Harmon was upstairs filling her squirrel feeders when a “tall and intimidating younger man,” not an older woman, showed up to deliver the groceries, the lawsuit says.
Harmon said she heard a gunshot sound and rushed outside. She found her dog, Oliver, had been shot, and saw the delivery person putting a gun into the front of his pants, according to the suit. Her teenage daughters, who had already been outside, were “in distress,” it says. The dog died at the veterinarian’s office.
The shopper told police that he shot the dog after it attacked him, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department told news outlets, adding that they did not pursue criminal charges.
In an Instagram post last month about the encounter, Harmon wrote that the shopper “did not have a scratch or bite on him nor were his pants torn.”
Instacart says it immediately suspended the shopper after receiving the report about the shooting, then later removed him permanently. The company says it runs comprehensive background checks on shoppers, prohibits them from carrying weapons and has anti-fraud measures that include periodically requiring them to take a photo of themselves to ensure the person shopping matches their photo on file.
“Our hearts continue to be with Ms. Harmon and her family following this disturbing incident,” Instacart said in a statement. “While we cannot comment on pending litigation, we have no tolerance for violence of any kind, and the shopper account has been permanently deactivated from our platform.”
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McDonald’s investing $100 million to lure customers back to the fast food giant after E. coli outbreak
McDonald’s is investing $100 million to bring customers back to stores after an outbreak of E. coli food poisoning tied to onions on the fast-food giant’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers.
The investments include $65 million that will go directly to the hardest-hit franchises, the company said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that slivered onions on the Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the E. coli. Taylor Farms in California recalled onions potentially linked to the outbreak.
The E. coli outbreak has sickened 104 people in 14 states, federal health officials said in an update on Wednesday.
At least 34 people have been hospitalized, and four developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. An 88-year-old man who resided in Grand Junction, Colorado, died, as previously reported. The illnesses began at the end of September, and the most recent onset of illness occurred as of Oct. 21, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration has said that “there does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald’s restaurants.”
However, the outbreak hurt the company’s sales.
Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in several states in the early days of the outbreak.
In a statement Wednesday obtained by CBS News, McDonald’s said it had found an “alternate supplier” for the approximately 900 restaurants that had temporarily stopped serving Quarter Pounders with slivered onions.
“Over the past week, these restaurants resumed the sale of Quarter Pounder burgers with slivered onions,” McDonald’s said.
CBS News reached out to McDonald’s on Saturday for a statement regarding the reported investment.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries – Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.
