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!
Oh no! NOT THE ONIONS!
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
Back in June 2024, Wilson also sued Sonic for including onions on a burger.
Honestly… It’s not even the sketchiest business model out there.
basically just vigilante food inspection
I always side with the underdogs, food allergens need to be respected.
He also tried to sue Sonic in 2024. Seems like his thing is to order a burger with no onions on it, then whenever the restaurants fucks up he sues them. He’s just trying to get paid
If the restaurants change their safety and handling practices as a result then I hope he does get paid. Just like how I support that guy who searches for raptor bones around telephone and power poles to sue the companies for not using plastic caps over the metal components preventing the touching of hot to ground which kills the birds. We need more of these people.
Oh so not an archaeologist then…
Dinosaurs are cool.
Raptors include Hawks, Owls, some Vultures, and Eagles.
I was so confused for a second until my brain processed the image you added
Respectfully, we do not need more people thinking they are searching for raptor bones around telephone and power poles to prevent the eradication of an entire species.
What’s fun about science is that a lot of people don’t understand that a good scientist will always challenge you to question their methodology, analysis, results, the whole enchilada. We advance by challenging each other and making someone defend their research. Peer review, while harsh at times, allows us to grow and innovate in ways “yes” men will never achieve.
Very fitting title for this sub indeed.
On the one hand, I hate onions. So I totally get it. I wish I could sue every time someone sticks one in my food as a disgusting surprise too.
On the other hand, if you have a food allergy, that is different than just requesting “no onion” on your burger. They have to take steps to prevent cross contamination. It is a whole thing, and he should know that if he is really that allergic. He would be having this issue all the time becuase (as I well know and lament as an onion hater) onions are in a ton of foods everywhere you go.
They would only be negligent and liable if he told them that he was allergic and they claimed to have taken precautions to prevent exposure of his food. If he just asked for no onions and had an allergic reaction because they messed up his order like every fast food restaurant in the world does sometimes, that is not gross negligence, that is a standard accident.
That would be the store’s best defense unless he claimed that the onions needed to be removed because of an allergy.
To the restaurant, it’s just an oops mistake. I’ve very often seen cross-contamination at places which assemble your burger or sub. Those little trays that hold the onions, pickles, lettuce, etc. very often have scintamination from one of the neighboring trays.
Also, if he has an allergy to onions, why not check the burger before eating it? It’s not like onions are a hidden ingredient.
This case seems like a nothing burger, tbh. 🤭
I’m pretty certain that if you actually said to them that you wanted the onions removed because you were allergic to onions they would probably tell you they can’t guarantee there won’t be cross-contamination.
Hell they probably don’t use different tongues for onions as they do lettuce so it’s practically a guarantee they will be cross-contamination.
Yes, food allergens have to be taken seriously. But if you’re that allergic to something, maybe don’t frequent places that have minimum wage workers making your food?
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
I ordered a burger the other day and it had no cheese on it for some reason. I did not realise I should have been contacting my lawyer .
I asked for light ice in my drink the other day and they gave me the regular amount of ice. Had my lawyer draft a demand letter for infinity billion dollars within the hour.
The US is so crazy when it comes to this. In Europe you’d almost always just sue for actual damages, which because of healthcare are pretty low. You could get a small amount in cash but nothing crazy. Suing just to get money is stupid.
Unfortunately, that’s just how they’ve set up our legal system to handle cases of negligence causing healthcare fees.
Removed by mod
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.
This is a surprisingly common thing that people with food allergies deal with. My partner is allergic to bananas, (they’re closely related to latex, which is an extremely common allergy) and has had anaphylaxis triggered multiple times from people trying to test it. People just randomly hide bananas in gifted food, to see if they’re really allergic. It has happened so many times that my partner actively refuses to eat baked goods unless they saw it get made.
The worst part is that the allergy runs in my partner’s family. So it’s not like they’re the only one who is allergic.
I’m convinced it’s due to projection. The people prone to lying are likely the ones who feel the need to test it, because they assume that everyone else lies a lot too.
You misunderstand. They were genuinely attempting to murder him. He was a kleptomaniac, compulsive liar, antisocial personality disorder. Just a very unpleasant influence in their lives. I think the final straw was when he stole one of their bank cards and emptied their account.
There’s a great Carolyn Hax advice column from years ago where the writer’s partner was vegetarian because he was actually allergic to meat.
Writer’s family thinks it’s a lie and sneaks meat into a meal. That results in a ride in the “screaming white bus,” as Carolyn put it, to the hospital.
The writer defended her family and insisted it was just a joke, and partner was taking it too seriously. I’ve left out a lot of detail, but Carolyn basically tells the partner he should run from this relationship.
I ABSOLUTELY know who this snowflake voted for.
Dude, not cool, is your brain so warped by politics that you have to interject it into every conversation?
I can’t possibly be doing the jerkoff gesture harder than I’m doing it right now.
Damn, he really ate the onion on that one…
Onions are easy to remove, it is that damn mayonnaise that ruins everything that should never be the default. If some confused person actually wants that garbage on anything they should be handed a packet to add it themselves.
My best friend has a serious allergic reaction to onions. It’s no joke. He ended up in the ER for 3 days after eating something with only a hint of onions.
To his credit though, he checks his burgers to see if they contain something that could kill him before eating them.
Unfortunately that is not how food allergies work.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
