NEW IBERIA, La. — Pierce Skrabanek, who represents the family of Nguyet Le, the manager found dead in the walk-in freezer at Arby's in New Iberia, has filed a restraining order against Arby's Restaurant LLC, requiring the company to agree to have experts inspect the freezer door latch for malfunctions.
Former employees raised concerns about the latch being broken for months, according to Skrabanek. It is also possible that the negative temperatures and the inability to open the door from the inside due to the broken latch could have caused their mother's death, as stated in the lawsuit filed by Le's family.
A former employee who asked for anonymity says Arby's kept the walk-in freezer even colder than it should have been, and no one was present when the incident occurred to let Le out.
According to the lawsuit, the latch had been broken for ten months with employees using a screwdriver and even a box of oil to keep it open and shutting themselves inside.
"It's always colder than what it was supposed to be and she was there by herself so I believe she just got stuck in the freezer door and had no one to help her get out," the anonymous source says.
The freezer door inspection by experts can help determine what happened to Le on the morning of May 11th.
"We want to inspect the door as it was at the time of the incident. We have a refrigeration expert to look at it and we have a franchise expert that's going to look at it," Skrabanek tells KATC.
Skrabenk says the firm will continue investigating after the inspection to uncover what caused Le's death.
"We filed the suit and we need them to answer it. Once they answer it we are going to engage in written discovery which we are going to ask a bunch of questions and ask for a bunch of documents and videos and all that and once we have that, we will analyze that and determine where we go from there." said Skrabanek.
Le was laid to rest last Friday in Texas.
KATC reached out for comment at Arby's Restaurants, LLC for a comment about the freezer door inspection but the call ended.
