Eatery owner sues over ‘carcass removal’ listing

Associated Press

HELENA, Mont.

A Montana restaurant listed in the phone book under “Animal Carcass Removal” became the butt of a Jay Leno joke earlier this year, but it’s no laughing matter to the owner now suing the publishing company over the business he’s lost.

Hunter Lacey says in his lawsuit that business at his Bar 3 Bar-B-Q restaurants in Bozeman and nearby Belgrade has dropped off since the Dex Media Inc. listing and that his brand and reputation have gone down the tubes.

The listing first appeared in 2009 in the yellow pages of Dex’s telephone book under the “Animal Carcass Removal” section. Lacey said he first found out about it when the calls started coming into the restaurants.

“It was a series of phone calls for several weeks where it was either people in earnest asking us to come and remove carcasses or prank calls,” Lacey said.

The listing was reprinted in other printed and online telephone directories last year and this year. It circulated on the Internet and in forwarded emails, and a reference to the listing ending up in a customer review on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Then in January, Leno joked about the listing on the “Headlines” segment of the “Tonight Show,” saying, “This seems to be, well, here it is: Animal carcass removal, call Bar 3 Bar-B-Q.”

Lacey wasn’t amused. His restaurants had lost $18,254 from 2009 and 2010. The years and hundreds of thousands of dollars Lacey had spent building up the restaurants’ brand had been wiped out, said his attorney, Geoffrey Angel.

Dex spokesman Chris Hardan said Friday that it was an “erroneous listing” that the company removed from its online directory when it was discovered and then took steps to ensure it wouldn’t be in future phone books.

“We regret the publication of the listing, and we continue to engage in every reasonable effort we can to ensure that our listings are accurate,” Hardan said.

Angel said he had been trying to reach an out-of-court settlement with Dex Media for $417,000. The publishing company initially expressed interest but never responded to the offer, he said.

He filed the lawsuit in state court in August, and the case was moved to federal court Tuesday.