Lawsuit of the Day: And Don't Even Ask About the McNuggets

As former employees and occasional patrons of McDonald’s, we weren’t exactly “lovin’ it” when we read about this lawsuit:

Dallas Cowboys assistant coach Todd Haley, his wife Christine, and the family’s au pair, Kathryn Kelley, have sued a Southlake, Texas, McDonald’s.

[They allege that] the wife and nanny took home a salad, began to eat it, and discovered one of mankind’s little benefactors lying on its back, eyes open, expired.

Yep, that’s right: they found a dead rat in their salad. So who’s ready for lunch?
Instead of just removing the rat, drizzling on some extra dressing, and forging ahead, the Haleys decided to file a lawsuit:

“Chrissy and Katy have become ill and have been completely shocked,” the suit states. “Chrissy and Katy are so completely repulsed and disgusted with having a rodent in their McDonald’s salad that they now have great difficulty eating any prepared foods. Rather, they now prefer to prepare their foods from scratch…”

We like columnist Jim Gordon’s take on the case:

[E]ven in death, the rat performs a humanitarian service, shocking the women into a healthier way of eating, probably adding years to their lives. How do they respond? By asking McDonald’s to cough up $1.7 million…

[The complaint alleges:] “When the ladies see food, for the most part, they re-live the rodent-in-the-McDonald’s salad horror, and their extreme nausea rises again … A dead rodent in food being eaten causes a distress and trauma level not encountered elsewhere in a dining experience.”

Obviously, Mr. Casterline is not familiar with the dining experience provided by some of our finer Cerrillos Road establishments.

We agree. After all, health inspection reports show that rat droppings are more common than white truffles in the kitchens of America’s top restaurants.
One-point-seven million, for finding a deceased rodent in your salad, strikes us as a bit over-the-top. Maybe they’re entitled to a free large fries. Maybe.
We have previously expressed our disapproval of outsized damage demands in food contamination cases. For $1.7 million, you should actually have to EAT the rat — not just discover it “in food being eaten,” lying there and minding its own business.
$1.7 Million Is a Lot of Lettuce [The Santa-Fe New Mexican]
Earlier: Lawsuit of the Day: Shouldn’t This Be a Class Action?

Sponsored