Burned laps from spilled coffee. Deceptive marketing. There’s usually one factor that unites the fans. But this Fast Food lawsuit is about just one fan with an onion allergy. Suing over an incident for which some might argue he shares some of the responsibility…
A classic Whataburger… Clearly contains chopped onions.
I had to check to be sure. But, yes: onion allergies do affect a significant number of folks – especially in North America. And like bee products and stings, dairy and eggs, and fish and seafood, onions can trigger potentially-deadly anaphylactic shocks in certain susceptible diners.
What happened?
A Texas man with a penchant for lawsuits is suing Whataburger over a ‘manufacturing defect’ that could potentially have cost him his life.
Demery Ardell Wilson is seeking damages of ‘nearly $1 million’ after the restauant served him unwanted onions on a burger. It’s not just that he specifically ordered his sandwich with ‘no onion’. He’s claiming Whataburger, “failed to uphold the ‘appropriate standard of care’,” causing him, “‘serious personal injuries’ that called for immediate medical care.”
Not his first rodeo
Turns out that Wilson is something of a veteran when it comes to suing Fast Food joints. Some time back, he filed a statement of claim against SONIC over a similar incident involving unwanted onions.
As might be expected, Whataburger is denying any wrongdoing, and demanding ‘strict proof’ from Wilson that he did, in fact, suffer exposure to onions as the result of visit to one of their locations, which did cause him ‘serious personal injuries’.
My take
What I want to know is, what’s a guy with a potentially deadly allergy to onions doing, dining at a resto where they serve menu items containing onions?
It’s always interesting to follow lawsuits like this one. Because both sides will probably argue that the other failed to exercise ‘due care and caution’ in the incident, leading to Wilson’s ‘serious personal injuries’. I may be setting myself up for backlash…
But where on the responsibility scale do you draw the line between the business involved and the individual who’s claiming negligence?
Would it not be reasonable to expect Wilson to shoulder at least some of the responsibility for his own predicament? To be aware that the resto had onions on the premises, which it customarily and regularly used on its burgers? To accept that there is always a chance of human error?
Or have I just been watching too many Law & Order courtroom procedurals?
~ Maggie J.