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Texas man sues Whataburger for nearly $1 million after burger had onions on it (www.kens5.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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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.

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[–] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I doubt that he's the one actually suing. I suspect that the actual plaintiff is his health insurer.

So many of these frivolous lawsuits ultimately originate from the insurance industry.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I'd be curious why you think it's frivolous. Why shouldn't people use a lawsuit when another hurts them? The civil court system is literally there for disagreements and "you hurt me, make it right".

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Patent vs latent defect. Any issue with the product that the customer could reasonably identify before suffering harm is the customer's responsibility to avoid. The vendor's liability here is the cost of the burger. The vendor is not liable for the harm arising from the customer's failure to look at the food they are about to eat.

    The vendor is responsible only for harm caused by defects the customer could not reasonably avoid. Hiddent, latent defects.

    If this is a case of subrogation, as I suspect, the customer acquired insurance coverage for the purpose (in part) of mitigating harm due to their own negligence. If this is the case, it is that insurance policy that is liable for the harm caused by the customer's failure to verify the burger met their requirements.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    That doesn't really sound like an argument that it's frivolous, it sounds like an argument about why the company shouldn't need to pay much. What if the onions weren't obvious? I don't know if they put their onions in a sauce, in the bun or something else.

    It's entirely plausible that lifting the bun would have revealed the onions, even most likely. I wouldn't, however, say that the concept of difficult to spot onions is so unreasonable as to say the case is frivolous.

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