Individual employees and executives of Stew Leonard's, including the company's president, will not be held legally responsible for the tragic January 2024 death of Órla Baxendale, a British dancer who suffered a fatal allergic reaction. This ruling comes from a Connecticut judge, who determined that claims against these individuals could not proceed. Baxendale, 25, originally from Manchester, England, but residing in New York, died after consuming a vanilla Florentine cookie that contained peanuts, which were not declared on the product's label. The cookie was manufactured by the wholesaler Cookies United in Islip and sold under the Stew Leonard’s brand name.

The incident occurred on January 11, 2024, when Baxendale experienced anaphylactic shock after eating the cookie at a social gathering in Connecticut. Despite the administration of an EpiPen, she succumbed to the severe allergic reaction that same day. In May 2024, the estate of the young dancer filed a wrongful-death lawsuit, asserting that the failure to properly label the cookie package constituted negligence.

However, in a significant ruling on September 16, Waterbury Superior Court Judge Kimberly Massicotte dismissed all claims against individual Stew Leonard's executives and employees, including president and chief executive Stew Leonard Jr. Furthermore, Judge Massicotte dismissed the lawsuit's wrongful death counts entirely, clarifying that Connecticut's Products Liability Act serves as the exclusive legal remedy for injuries resulting from defective products. The judge's decision allows for a lawsuit based on product liability claims against both Stew Leonard's and Cookies United to continue, with a trial presently scheduled for the coming year. Judge Massicotte stated, "The allegations in this case are inadequate to demonstrate that the individual employee defendants had an independent duty to the decedent. The duty articulated in the plaintiff's complaint belongs to the operator of the grocery store."

Conflicting accounts have emerged regarding the peanut allergen. Stew Leonard’s maintains that its supplier, Cookies United, altered the recipe from soy nuts to peanuts without proper notification to their chief safety officer. Conversely, executives from Cookies United assert that they sent emails to 11 Stew Leonard's employees—all of whom were named in the initial lawsuit—to inform them that the product now contained peanuts. Cookies United further contends that when the cookies were shipped to Stew Leonard's, the labels generated by the bakery explicitly stated that the product contained peanuts. The lawsuit, on the other hand, alleges that Stew Leonard's employees disregarded the email notifications and failed to update the cookie labels with the revised ingredients.

Howard Hershenhorn, the attorney representing Baxendale's family, expressed strong disapproval, stating that "Stew Leonard’s continues to litigate rather than accept responsibility, prolonging a grieving family’s suffering. We will continue to pursue punitive damages to punish Stew Leonard's for their gross negligence and demand full accountability and lasting change so no other family endures a preventable loss." Stew Leonard's and Cookies United, along with their legal counsel, have not yet responded to requests for comment on the ongoing legal proceedings. Órla Baxendale had moved to New York in 2018 to pursue dance training as a scholarship student at The Ailey School and had performed in numerous professional productions, including those at Lincoln Center.