SAN JOSE, Calif. — A San Jose doctor who sued a Los Gatos restaurant claiming its “Dragon Balls” appetizer was so spicy it burned her internally has dropped her lawyer and is representing herself in the court case.

Harjasleen Walia in July 2023 filed a lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court alleging she “incurred permanent injuries and will forever be damaged” by the $11 chicken-meatball dish at Coup de Thai in downtown Los Gatos. The appetizer burned Walia’s vocal cords, esophagus and the inside of her right nostril, the lawsuit claimed.

A May filing in the case showed Walia has elected to substitute herself for the lawyer who had been representing her.

Walia, a neurologist at HeadacheAwayMD Brain & Spine Center in west San Jose, did not respond to questions about why she was representing herself, or whether she planned to obtain a new lawyer. A five- to seven-day jury trial is scheduled to start August 25.

Walia’s former lawyer Mark Zanobini declined to comment on why he was no longer acting on her behalf.

Former Santa Clara County prosecutor Steven Clark, now an attorney in San Jose handling criminal and civil cases, likened non-lawyers representing themselves in court to ordinary drivers getting the key to an Indy race car. “You’re likely to crash in the first turn,” Clark said. “It would be very difficult for the average person even with medical training. It would be like a lawyer trying to practice medicine. Even lawyers who are in court have lawyers representing them.”

Walia, if she continues to represent herself, is “going to be going up against a trained insurance defense lawyer,” Clark said.

Coup de Thai’s lawyer, Cynthia Banks from the State Farm insurance company, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The restaurant in an October 2023 court filing denied Walia’s allegations or causing injury to her.

The lawsuit claimed the Dragon Balls dish was advertised as spicy, and that Walia asked her server to make it with less spice because “she does not tolerate spicy foods.” The server said the chef would make the dish less spicy, the lawsuit alleged.

But almost immediately after she began eating the Dragon Balls, she “felt her entire mouth, the roof of her mouth, her tongue, her throat and her nose burn like fire,” and that her “eyes and nose watered, and she began coughing.”

Walia began to lose her voice and was diagnosed with internal “chemical burns” from the chilis in the Dragon Balls, the lawsuit alleged.

The lawsuit pointed a finger at Thai “bird’s eye” chili as the ingredient that made Walia’s Dragon Balls allegedly “unfit for human consumption.” The restaurant’s owner, chef, server and others involved with the appetizer “failed to take precautions by consulting with health officials or emergency service personnel regarding the risks associated with serving too much Thai chili in an appetizer like Dragon Balls,” the lawsuit claimed.

A supervisor at Coup de Thai, contacted by this news organization soon after the lawsuit was filed, said the restaurant had never previously had a diner say they had been burned by a dish and needed medical attention. Dragon Balls, the supervisor said, cannot be made in a “mild” version because the chili is inside the balls. Patrons wanting to order Dragon Balls but saying they cannot handle spicy foods are typically encouraged to order something else, the supervisor said.

In a November 2023 court filing, Walia claimed that a later admission — the filing does not specify when or by whom — made clear how she was allegedly burned. “A new employee who prepared the dish made an error and added additional peppers, rather than reducing them as requested,” the filing said.

Dr. Kelly Johnson-Arbor, a physician at the Washington, D.C.-based National Capital Poison Center, told this news organization earlier that eating Thai chilis — spicier than cayenne peppers but not as spicy as habaneros — can irritate the mouth and throat but “are not associated with permanent tissue damage.”

Court filings by Coup de Thai have said the restaurant would subpoena Walia’s medical records and seek to have her undergo a medical exam.

Walia is seeking unspecified damages, plus medical expenses and compensation for purportedly lost earnings. Her lawsuit also accused the defendants of failing to train Coup de Thai staff “to serve Thai iced tea or some other dairy-based product if a customer had a bad reaction to spice intensity.”

Right after her alleged reaction to the Dragon Balls, Walia and her companion told a waitress that yogurt or another milk product “was needed because the dish was too spicy,” but “no milk, ice cream, yogurt, sour cream or other dairy product was provided or offered to Ms. Walia to quell the obvious burning,” the lawsuit claimed.

Walia, the lawsuit claimed, “drank an entire glass of coconut water and more water, but the burning did not subside.”

The court has ordered a mandatory settlement conference between the parties to take place five days before the trial is set to start.

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