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.
Featuring in this community! Because… Onions!
The guy ate the onion…
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If you have a allergy to onions wouldn’t you check a burger before eating it? I mean, who blindly trusts fast food workers that much?
People with an EpiPen and a need for $1m
Really should put him being allergic in the title there.
I once had a friend who claimed to be allergic to onions and his flatmates managed to prove it was a lie… By trying to kill him.
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When i read the title i knew it was gonna be an allergy thing and yup i was right. Maybe not 1mil but allergies are serious.
Yeah, this story hit me kinda like the McDonald’s hot coffee incident; it seemed silly and frivolous on the surface until you realize just how much danger the person could’ve actually been in.
Though I’m loving the comments in this thread. The arguments over corporate responsibility vs personal responsibility are pretty interesting!
Given that he is allergic, it’s a reasonable thing to do, isn’t it? Or is the health and safety of people with allergies not relevant?
On the one hand, I agree with you.
On the other hand, if you’re deathly allergic to something as common as onions, you probably shouldn’t rely on fast food workers to keep you alive.
I’ve got a friend with actual Celiac’s disease. To the point where a drop of wheat could be the end of him. He does not take this kind of chance, ever. He trusts me to cook for him, but I care about his existence beyond just being a customer.
I worked fast food for a while. Sometimes we were so busy and understaffed that things became very hectic very quick. More than once, I forgot the meat on a hamburger order.
I can understand, from the employee perspective, how this could happen. It’s very doubtful it was purposeful.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a McDonalds franchise fully staffed. They don’t get enough business to have that many employees, but you can be sure they get enough business that it’s too much for the employees they do have on staff when a rush comes.
On the other hand, if you’re deathly allergic to something as common as onions, you probably shouldn’t rely on fast food workers to keep you alive.
If you’re serving food to the public you should probably be careful not to kill them.
It’s a nice ideal, but historically the companies don’t think like that and in most cases the workers don’t get paid enough to be that passionate. 4/5-star restaurants? Sure. Not fast food, though.
Also consider the sheer amount of food orders a fast food place gets in a day, especially with things like DoorDash on top of in-person and drive-thru.
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.
That’s fine. I’m not necessarily saying it’s a you problem, it’s definitely on the company. Think, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” kinda vibe.
I just distrust both the corporations that are for-profit, and the government we would have to rely on to regulate and help us make them accountable. I just don’t see companies changing for the good of the proles under the current administration, no matter how much we make a stink about it.
I guess my subconscious point is more along the lines of “vote with your wallet” and stop supporting companies that don’t make this kind of thing a priority. There are certainly some fast food companies that actually do care, but I couldn’t name one at the moment.
That’s something I can wholeheartedly agree on!
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.
What I’m saying is stop supporting companies that don’t care; stop giving them money and don’t eat there again if they can’t follow your request. I’ll say it a 3rd time, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
That’s not callous indifference, that’s 1) voting with your wallet and 2) trying to promote a little self-reliance.
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?
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.
Indeed. I said it in another comment just now, but what I’m getting at is more: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”
I’m of the same thinking; if there are things that you can’t eat for health reasons, then you should check any food that you didn’t prepare, yourself.
Trust, but verify.
Especially for something this simple.
Lift top bun “oh, this could kill me”
Exactly. Not blaming the victim, pls go ahead and sue the giant corp.
Still, I don’t like cucumbers, so I always take a look in my burger to make sure they got the order right. I’m not blindly trusting a tired 19 year old student worker who’s fighting a hangover. No judgment or anger there, I don’t go to fast food restaurants to get Michelin star food or service.
It doesn’t say that he’s anaphylactic though, just that he sought out medical treatment. I mean he could have been, but as far as I know anaphylaxis from onions is rather rare. Medical treatment could mean that he had diarrhea and got medication for that.
That being said, I wouldn’t step into a burger place with an onion allergy. Especially since the onion allergene can be airborne. I have a soy allergy and you won’t see me in an Asian restaurant.
That being said, I wouldn’t step into a burger place with an onion allergy. Especially since the onion allergene can be airborne. I have a soy allergy and you won’t see me in an Asian restaurant.
At least you still understood the point. I was just using “deathly allergic” as fuel for the argument.
I felt the same way about the “charged” caffeine lemonade that killed that girl a while back. Regardless of whether it was correctly signed or not, why are people ingesting food and drink they can’t verify won’t fuck them up?
why are people ingesting food and drink they can’t verify won’t fuck them up?
Indeed. Self-reliance is the key here. Don’t expect a money-making business to have your best interests in mind, especially the big players with billions of customers worldwide.
To reference Emerson a 2nd time: The first wealth is health. You alone are responsible for that.
When I was working in fast food we got a lot of people telling us that they were deathly allergic to onions. If all of their claims were true then every man woman and child in my city of 300,000 would have to be eating their at least once a week. It’s a major disruption because if someone claims an allergy you have to do a special mini prep just for that order to avoid cross contamination. After a while we collectively just started treating them like regular no onion orders. I’d be shocked if most places didn’t do the same.
I’m betting this is another example of subrogation..
I’d bet that this guy’s health insurance refuses to pay out unless they can file suit in his name. The overwhelming majority of these bullshit lawsuits only exist because of scumbag insurers.
Remember that lady who sued her nephew? Her medical insurance refused to pay her medical bills unless they were allowed to sue the nephew’s homeowner’s insurance in her name.
Never attribute to the named plaintiff what is adequately explained by subrogation.
Yeah but isn’t it a criminal act to poison someone with something they are allergic against, if the victim specifically informed the restaurant about the allergy?
I mean, if I was allergic, I wouldn’t trust the restaurant either, but that doesn’t mean that the restaurant can just ignore people’s allergies. This all sounds like structural discrimination of people with certain health issues to me.
Yeah but isn’t it a criminal act to poison
“Poison” implies someone deliberately intended to cause harm. Nothing has been presented to argue that someone deliberately intended harm.
I mean, if I was allergic, I wouldn’t trust the restaurant either,
Exactly. This is what a reasonable, prudent person would do. If the customer had checked their order, they would have discovered the problem before any harm arose.
Which is why this guy’s health insurance should simply cover this: simple negligence by the insured is not a valid justification for denying coverage.
It would be different if we were talking about something that the customer couldn’t have verified. But the presence or absence of onions topping a burger is easily verified before consumption; the customer was not reliant on the restaurant to ensure their own safety. They had the ability to prevent this particular harm through a simple, reasonable action that they failed to perform.
IMO, that means their liability here is the cost of the burger. They would have been expected to replace the burger if the customer had checked.
But the real takeaway here is Fuck Health Insurance. If this is, indeed, subrogation as I suspect, we should be picketing an insurance executive.
Very fitting title for this sub indeed.
Damn, he really ate the onion on that one…
It was the onion though.
I think this is a rare instance where eating the onion actually fits the /c/ :)
Back in June 2024, Wilson also sued Sonic for including onions on a burger. That fast food company has requested a jury trial for this week.
Dude is literally wasting his own time. They keep lawyers on retainer for these exact type of cases. He’d fail even with a small company once he hit their insurance lawyer.
What argument do you think the lawyers would make? A food establishment is supposed to be able to safely handle food. He requested food without an ingredient for health reasons and they agreed. Then they failed at food handling and he got sick.
It’s a civil case, so the result can be a divided share of the blame. Something also tells me that they won’t want to make the argument “no reasonable person would have any expectations that we got their order right”.
Having a lawyer on retainer doesn’t mean you’re going to win, it just means you expect enough lawsuits to justify it. Recall the “absurd” McDonald’s hot coffee case that 1) they lost despite having a lot of lawyers, and 2) wasn’t absurd except through the lens of our society tending to label anyone suing a company as some combination of foolish and greedy.
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.
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”.
I’m betting that this is subrogation: His health insurer doesn’t want to pay his medical bills, so they are filing suit in his name.
Slipped on pee-pee at the megalomart.
This lawsuit will fail. They state they will make efforts to accommodate allergies but they cannot guarantee it. It’s cut and dry, there just ain’t no way
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People who specifically requested their food be made without the thing they are allergic to?
Food allergies are something supposed to be taken extremely seriously in public food service. Second to general sanitation, its the whole point of why we have strict regulations about making and serving food.
From the minute the guy ordered w no onions and told them it was an allergy, his entire order should have been made and handled with fresh equipment that had been nowhere near any onions. Its not something that is ever supposed to be easily missable. Otherwise someone could end up in the hospital, like this dude
In order to actually do this, most places I’ve worked would have to hire an extra person. Spoiler : they definitely won’t do that.
Everywhere Ive worked allergy related requests are not that common. Either way though, its literally the letter of the law that every food service place do it. Cross contamination prevention, especially for an allergy, is just basic food service 101. Its a bit frightening that you say youve never seen it anywhere
Imagine being allergic to onions. Weak-ass genes.
If i custom order and its not right and they advertise custom ordering, theyre getting a bad review. This guy is DEATHLY allergic to onions so if the place advertises custom ordering they better give him his million.
