A San Antonio woman says scalding barbecue sauce spilled from a tray and burned her hand at a Bill Miller Bar-B-Q on Southwest Military Drive, making her lawsuit the third sauce-burn case to hit the restaurant chain since a jury awarded a burned teenager $2.8 million in January 2025. Leticia Ann Lara filed suit last month in state district court in San Antonio against Bill Miller Bar-B-Q Enterprises LLC and Brazos de Santos Partners LLC, the property owner, alleging the sauce was served at an unsafe temperature and was not properly contained or secured.
Lara's alleged injury occurred June 9, 2025, roughly four months after Bill Miller began adding bright yellow warning labels reading “Caution: Contents are hot.” to its drive-thru menus and takeout bags, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Her attorney, Andre Anziani, did not respond immediately to an email seeking comment, the paper reported. Her filing alleges the defendants failed to warn her and failed to train employees to handle hot food and sauce, and it seeks more than $1 million in damages, according to the petition. The filing does not describe the extent of her burns or the specific medical treatment she received, and Bill Miller Bar-B-Q Enterprises LLC has not filed an answer to her suit.
A Pattern of Sauce-Burn Claims
Lara's case follows two other pending lawsuits over incidents that allegedly predate the warning labels. Angelica Ochoa sued Bill Miller in April 2025, alleging she suffered second-degree burns when sauce spilled on her leg on October 25, 2023, at the chain's location at North Loop 1604 East and O'Connor Road. Ochoa has said the sauce was hot enough to disturb the seal of its plastic cup and that it melted part of her jeans; her case still has no trial date set, and the Express-News reported she seeks more than $1 million in damages. Bill Miller has generally denied her allegations and said her own actions or failure to act contributed to the incident.
Rose Roque sued Bill Miller in May 2025 on behalf of herself and her then-4-year-old son, seeking more than $1 million after alleging that dangerously hot barbecue sauce spilled on the boy's face at the restaurant at Loop 410 and Culebra Road, causing second-degree burns and other undisclosed injuries. The complaint alleges an employee placed an uncovered sauce container on a tray provided to the boy's grandfather, Steve Roque, while the pair stood in line, and that the sauce then spilled on the child. Rose Roque's lawsuit accuses Bill Miller of failing to provide a secure container and routinely overheating its sauce.
Bill Miller Points to the Grandfather
Bill Miller has pushed back on how the spill happened. The company alleges the boy crawled on the restaurant floor, reached up, and pulled down his grandfather's tray, spilling the sauce, and claims Steve Roque was distracted and controlled the tray at the time. In September 2025, Bill Miller brought Steve Roque into the case as a third-party defendant, alleging he may be liable for all or part of the plaintiffs' claims; Steve Roque denies the company's allegations. The Roque case is scheduled for trial in March 2027.
Shan Marie Egliskis, the lawyer representing Bill Miller Bar-B-Q Enterprises LLC, did not respond immediately to a request for comment, according to the same Express-News report.
The $2.8 Million Verdict Behind It All
The wave of litigation traces back to a January verdict in favor of Genesis Monita, a San Antonio teen who suffered second-degree burns when barbecue sauce spilled on her thigh in 2023. A Bexar County jury found Bill Miller grossly negligent and 100% responsible for the damages, according to KSAT. Jurors awarded Monita $900,000 for past and future mental anguish, physical pain and impairment, $25,225 for medical expenses, $700 for lost wages, and $1.9 million in punitive damages. State District Judge Christine Hortick later entered a final judgment reducing the punitive damages under Texas' statutory cap, bringing Monita's total judgment to about $1.8 million including prejudgment interest.
Monita's lawyers have said jurors heard evidence of her pain and emotional distress, and they argued that a Bill Miller safety coordinator received a 2021 report of another customer suffering a second-degree sauce burn at the same restaurant but did not investigate it or alert store employees. Bill Miller is appealing the judgment, challenging the noneconomic damages and the gross-negligence finding, and argues the damages exceeded what the evidence supported and that it did not knowingly disregard an extreme risk. The company is not challenging the jury's findings that it was negligent, that Monita bore no responsibility, or that the sauce was unsafe as served with inadequate warnings. That appeal remains pending in the 4th Court of Appeals, which withdrew the case from its November 10 oral-argument calendar and will reset it, the Express-News reported.
Warning Labels Arrived After the Verdict
Bill Miller started adding the bright yellow warning labels to drive-thru menus and takeout bags in February 2025, after the Monita verdict. KSAT reported at the time that it remained unclear whether the labels were a direct result of the lawsuit, even though they were implemented after the legal proceedings, according to the outlet's reporting. Three separate customers — Ochoa, Roque and now Lara — have filed suit alleging burns from the chain's sauce, with two of those claims tied to incidents that predate the labels' rollout. The Express-News also detailed Lara's suit and the broader pattern of litigation facing the San Antonio chain.
