Jennica Church says she contracted herpes after eating an Arby’s meal in Broken Bow on March 28, 2026, and a lawsuit filed in McCurtain County says a former manager spat on the food before it was served. Church later said she woke up with a painful lesion on her face and learned she had HSV-1.
The amended filing, dated June 25, 2026, adds Inspire Brands as a defendant alongside Amanda Hendricks, RB ARK Restaurants LLC and Flynn Restaurant Group LP. Church’s attorneys are asking for a jury trial.
Church’s account
According to the lawsuit, Church bought the food after work and ate one sandwich while leaving the restaurant parking lot. The filing says she then shared the remaining food with her husband and his mother, who was receiving hospice care at the time. Church says she had never tested positive for the virus before and had never experienced symptoms.
The lawsuit says the experience left her with “debilitating fear and anxiety” over possible transmission to family members. That claim is central to the case because it links the alleged contamination to harm beyond the later diagnosis itself.
Hendricks and the video
Attorneys for Church say the surveillance footage shows Hendricks spitting on meat and other sandwich ingredients before the food was handed through the drive-through window. They also say Hendricks knew she had an active case of oral herpes with visible lesions and understood that saliva could potentially transmit the virus.
The family says the story did not end there. After the diagnosis, Church says her daughter found a voice recording in which Hendricks admitted to spitting in the food.
Arby’s response in McCurtain County
The filing also says an Arby’s representative told the family that surveillance footage had been reviewed and nothing was found. The family says it later received phone calls offering free sandwiches or five dollars if it abandoned its claims. Representatives for the Arby’s franchise, RB ARK Restaurants LLC and Flynn Restaurant Group LP had not publicly responded to the allegations as of publication.
The amended lawsuit keeps the dispute focused on what the court will have to decide next: whether the food was contaminated as alleged, and whether Church’s HSV-1 diagnosis can be tied to that meal. The jury trial request puts that question in front of a court rather than leaving it to the parties’ competing versions of what happened.
