‘Absolute mayhem’: 2-year-old enjoying lunch with family gets mowed down and killed by driver, family sues over ‘dangerous’ restaurant design

A 2-year-old boy in Illinois was killed last month when a car crashed through the front door of a Portillo’s, one of the state’s most popular fast-casual food chains, as his family was enjoying an afternoon lunch together. Now, they’re suing the establishment for over $100,000 — claiming the restaurant’s designs and parking configurations are “unreasonably dangerous” and “vulnerable to vehicle intrusions.”

“This is an absolutely devastating and heart-wrenching case,” attorney Louis A. Cairo told Law&Crime last week after filing the McKee family’s lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court.

“They’re sitting at one of the tables closest to the entrance, they’re having a great time at 2 o’clock in the afternoon,” Cairo recalled about the day Finnegan McKee, son of Christina and Schyler McKee, was killed by a 50-year-old woman who allegedly hopped a curb and crashed through the Portillo’s on July 30. Oswego police told local Fox affiliate WFLD that the crash appeared to be accidental, but police are still investigating.

“He’s got his mom and dad, his grandma and grandpa, his aunt and uncle, he’s got his little brother, and next thing they know it’s absolute mayhem,” Cairo said. “The unthinkable happens as a car comes flying through the front door.”

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According to police, the driver was in town from Canton, Michigan, at the time she allegedly crashed into the Portillo’s. The McKees don’t mention her specifically in their wrongful death lawsuit, only that the crash resulted from the restaurant not having a “barrier to prevent a vehicle incursion” and other safety design measures, per the complaint.

“Portillo’s configured the parking lot so that parking spaces were positioned immediately in front of, and perpendicular to, the restaurant entrance, requiring vehicles to park head-in or back-in rather than parallel to the building frontage,” the complaint alleges.

“The parking spots immediately in front of the restaurant had no physical barriers, such as parking stops, parking bumpers, fencing, bollards or walls, any one of which would prevent or, at a minimum slow a vehicle from driving from the asphalt parking lot up onto the sidewalk and into the storefront,” the document adds. “Portillo’s situated its tables so as to locate its seated diners within feet of the glass entrance doors without any physical barriers between them and head-in parking spaces.”

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Aug. 22, Finnegan’s parents talked about their son and how it felt to lose him in such a tragic way.

“You don’t go out somewhere expecting to not come home with your 2-year-old,” Christina McKee said, calling Finnegan “perfect” and the “smartest little 2-year-old.”

“Nobody should have to go through that,” she concluded.

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Cairo told Law&Crime that the family hopes their lawsuit can help save another child’s life someday, should something like this occur again.

“Some of the potential good that can come of this is would be to enact an ordinance or legislation where if you have an establishment that has a parking lot attached to it, you better make sure you have safety barriers in place that are going to protect the patrons that are inside that establishment,” said Cairo, who is a lawyer for GWC Injury Lawyers, LLC. “There better be bollards, there better be concrete blocks there to stop the momentum of a vehicle, so there’s not another family sitting at a Portillo’s, or at a Chick-fil-A, a McDonalds, enjoying their afternoon lunch with their family and next thing you know all hell breaks loose because a car comes through the front door.”

Portillo’s did not respond to Law&Crime’s requests for comment on Monday.

The post ‘Absolute mayhem’: 2-year-old enjoying lunch with family gets mowed down and killed by driver, family sues over ‘dangerous’ restaurant design first appeared on Law & Crime.