FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: PETER BYLSMA
PHONE: 310-795-8532
February 16, 2006
(Los Angeles, CA) – Los Angeles Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse has announced its “Loony Lawsuit” for February. This month’s frivolity looks at how, once again, frivolous lawsuits turn our courts into a sticky mess.
According to a January 2005 article in The News Journal (Delaware), a Superior Court judge will hear arguments in a lawsuit filed by a woman claiming that a McDonald’s restaurant served her 12-year-old son a hot fudge sundae that contained human blood, leaving him traumatized by the possibility that he could have contracted a potentially deadly disease.
The woman claims that when her son dug into his sundae, he “recognized the taste of blood and noticed a red substance on the side of his sundae cup and mixed into his ice cream.”
According to the restaurant owner, the so-called blood was actually strawberry syrup. He asserts that all claims are unfounded and that he has witnesses who will testify that strawberry syrup sometimes clogs the ice cream machines. He believes the allegations are purely meant to ruin his business and compared the incident to the recent case involving a woman who planted a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy’s chili to extort money from the fast-food chain.
Court documents state that the woman notified the restaurant manager who confirmed that the employee who prepared the sundae had an injured finger and that this employee had earlier been advised to keep it bandaged. The restaurant owner stated that the manager should never have said the substance was blood.
As a result of the negligence, according to the lawsuit, the boy suffered illness from the consumption of blood, physical injury from numerous blood tests performed, as well as fright, horror and mental anxiety. The sum of the damages requested is stated at less than $100,000.
“Perhaps a larger question we as citizens should address is what has caused us to become such a litigious society?” stated Peter Bylsma, executive director of Los Angeles CALA. “It’s time to re-examine our attitude on the civil justice system. When it is misused we all pay and we all lose. It’s there for justice and not greed.”
Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse is a nonprofit, grassroots public education organization dedicated to serving as a watchdog over the legal system and those who would seek to abuse it for undeserved gain. For more information, visit www.losangelescala.org.
