HOUSTON — A Houston man is suing Whataburger for nearly $1 million after he says his burger had onions on it.
Turns out he had asked for a no-onions order.
On July 24, 2024, Demery Ardell Wilson had an allergic reaction after eating a burger that had onions on it at Whataburger, court documents say. He alleges that he requested the fast-food chain to take them off before serving him the burger.
If you’re serving food to the public you should probably be careful not to kill them.
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I get where you’re coming from. But I still disagree.
What you describe makes sense from a realistic standpoint BUT I don’t see why we shouldn’t hold corporations to a higher standard since they are selling this exact higher standard to us.
Yes Fastfood workers likely aren’t paid enough to care about customized orders but that isn’t a ME problem. It’s the company’s problem since they can’t keep up with their promises. So time to hold them responsible.
Also my two cents to add to the general issue: if I can’t cater to custom needs or don’t want to, I can still lie to the customer and tell them it’s not possible instead of risking to kill them through my apathy.
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That’s something I can wholeheartedly agree on!
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I have the feeling that the customer checked for onion before eating (the thick slices are easy to notice, especially if you’re seriously allergic to that) and because his eyes had this reaction 🤑🤑🤑, ate the burger with pleasure.
Especially in an environment where the pace is frantic and the workers are pushed by management to become mindless drones
What responsibility, if any, does the customer bear in avoiding harm to himself?
The onions in question are a burger topping, and are readily discoverable if the customer checks their order. I think that the customer with the special requirement can be reasonably expected to verify their order meets their needs before incurring harm.
I believe he’s already suing Sonic for the same issue. He knew (or should have known) this was a mistake that restaurants can potentially make, yet he apparently made no effort of his own to mitigate the risk by checking his food before eating.
I would argue that it is “reckless” for the customer to blindly trust the worker fulfilled the special instructions, and that this “recklessness” is the primary cause of the harm incurred.
I would say that the restaurant’s liability here is the cost of the “defective” burger.
And that’s why it’s fair to sue them. What you’re describing is callous indifference to the well-being of others that has caused demonstrative harm.
I think everyone agrees on what the fast food place is thinking. The issue is that that line of reasoning is dangerous and has legal penalties.
Think of it with “hand washing” and “fecal coliform bacteria” instead. “It’s too expensive to train our workers to wash their hands after pooping, and most wouldn’t anyway because we don’t pay them enough to care” just isn’t a defense when someone gets sick as a result.
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Just for the record, other people haven’t necessarily seen other comments you’ve made. Acting indignant about that is frustrating.
What’s callous indifference is the company having an attitude that allergy safety is too much work, not thinking you should vote with you wallet.
A lawsuit is part of voting with your wallet. More specifically, giving them a financial incentive to take food safety more seriously.
I seriously doubt the guy is going to go back to either restaurant, so voting with his wallet and not giving them money for a burger is done, and likely doesn’t cover the costs he incurred as a result of their error.
When is a lawsuit appropriate if not after a business decides to cut corners and hurts you?
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You’re talking systemic change. A lawsuit doesn’t need to cause systemic change to be worth it for the person who was wronged.
The justice system isn’t always about correcting grand social inequities. Sometimes it’s literally just conflict resolution and balancing things out. If I break my neighbor’s fence, the judge isn’t going to try to bankrupt me or have me give money as a punishment to keep me from breaking other fences. They’re going to have me pay for fixing my neighbors fence because that’s what’s fair.
If your goal is to hurt the business, there are certainly better ways than the justice system. If your goal is for them to pay for the damage they did, the justice system is pretty much the only game in town.
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Given that most of the comment thread was about if the lawsuit was justified or not, you can understand how a sudden shift to systemic justice and the morality of corporations might be a little unexpected.
So it sounds like you’re saying the people who have been hurt shouldn’t recoup their damages, since that just stalls the continued fucking over without consequences, and instead they should… Let them get away with it, embrace getting fucked over, and take the consequences of the company onto themselves? The exact same outcome, except the corporation has even fewer costs?
It can simultaneously be dumb for him to trust the company and for it to be the company’s fault that he was fed something he specifically asked not to be served.
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People make mistakes. I’ve been a teenager working in fast food. I would not be trusting them to keep you alive.
people make mistakes, that’s why EXTREMELY PROFITABLE GLOBAL RESTAURANT CHAINS should have procedures and sufficient staffing to ensure that these mistakes don’t kill people.
Sure, they should. But that’s not the world we live in.
and that’s why we should support people who sue these companies for making mistakes :)
I’d prefer some agency doing random inspections though
yup, but until then this is what we get
Do you really expect some of the lowest wage workers working in likely shit conditions with shit managers to get 100% of orders right?
Also, if I’m deathly allergic to something like onions then I will absolutely check everything I didn’t prepare myself.