LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — John Schnatter’s drinking became such an issue when he led Papa Johns that he seemed “impaired” during numerous phone calls and board meetings, the company’s former CEO said in a sworn deposition. It got to the point, Steve Ritchie testified in 2022, that Schnatter was admitted to a treatment facility in Pennsylvania for alcohol abuse.
The deposition was part of Schnatter’s six-year federal lawsuit against public relations firm Laundry Service over the infamous racial slur that led to his downfall at the pizza company he founded in southern Indiana.
Ritchie said he started to become concerned in 2017. He’d always known Schnatter to enjoy a drink from time to time. But Ritchie said Schnatter’s tone and temperament changed that year. His drinking started to “impair some of his ability to do some of his regular work functions,” Ritchie testified…