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…
Oh no! NOT THE ONIONS!
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.
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!
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.
Reading the article and only applying the information available in it, this is the individual’s responsibility.
The article states he asked for a no-onion order, not that he notified the restaurant that he had an allergy and needed the onions removed. Asking for an item to be left off and notifying of an allergy are very different because allergy prep is done very specifically.
Also, they had a similar issue at a different restaurant in 2024 that they sued for. If they can demonstrate negligence, which will be hard, then maybe they have a case but if the customer didn’t specify an allergy and didn’t check before eating the burger, then the failure is as much theirs.
When I was a child and learning about traffic safety we were taught that pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way over cars but it was stressed that right of way won’t stop a car from killing you if you step into traffic.
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
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?
What’s frustrating is people thinking they can fight a corrupt system from within the corrupt system, playing by their rules. The story of Winston Smith in 1984 is a lesson, not something to model your life after.
Suing someone, if you have the capitol to do so and actually win, doesn’t do a whole lot in the long run and it isn’t accessible to a lot of people because of the cost. It’s part of the operating costs for large corporations these days.
Let’s take Whataburger. Their best year they pulled in $6.7m profit. If you had 7 suits @ $1m payout all occur at the same time and win, then great, you might do something. However, neither of the two cases this guy is suing for have come to a conclusion yet, and it’s just one person. They also still have an income source from patrons that are still buying their product, so they will make it back and they know that.
If you instead spread the word and cut off their income source by raising awareness of it, it becomes much more effective and there’s no BS legal crap going on that can be twisted by lawyers. Just pure loss of profits.
ETA: I repeated my comment precisely because I expected you didn’t dig through all the comments. For those that do read through them all, they know I understand that I’m repeating myself because of all the spawned threads in here.
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”
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.
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
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.
If you verify it every time, you aren’t really trusting the workers
That’d be true if after you verified all employees
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.
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.
if you’re deathly allergic to something as common as onions, you probably shouldn’t rely on fast food workers to keep you alive.
“Probably” is a big deal, though. It’s included in food stamps for a reason - many people, for various reasons, can’t prepare their own meals.
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.
Remember, the mcdonalds lady got mocked in the media for suing, dont just assume based off of the headlines.
She had third-degree burns on her vagina and needed plastic surgery to fix it. It must have been horribly painful.
Almost as bad as getting onions.
Edit: woosh
Her ordeal wasn’t a joke, and McDonald’s was directly responsible for the slander that she endured in the media. She definitely deserved the millions that were awarded to her.
Woosh
I hope someone makes a joke of the terrible disfiguring pain you have one day. I’ll laugh when that happens to you. Have a great day!
I see that it’s you that is an insensitive asshole, and I who makes dubioys (probably too complicated 🤷🏼♀️) jokes.
I prefer being me every day.
PS. Relax & touch grass man.
Joking about a person who went thru massive pain and was laughed at about it. Good job!
Maybe you are on par with Manson? You definitely sound like someone who cares about others in the way Manson did.
I touch grass every day, and I don’t laugh at the suffering of others like some sociopathic person.
Maybe ask yourself what you find funny about the suffering of others, and you will understand where I’m coming from. I highly doubt you will because sociopaths never do.
He has a fucking allergy to onions, which he made clear.
Stop acting like he’s sueing because his order was wrong- the lawsuit because they nearly killed him.
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.
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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.
EDIT: This kind of Raptor (image below)
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.
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
Really should put him being allergic in the title there.
It was the onion though.
I think this is a rare instance where eating the onion actually fits the /c/ :)
Very fitting title for this sub indeed.
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.
Slipped on pee-pee at the megalomart.
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 contamination 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.
Having worked in food, there are specific allergy protocols that are observed when a food allergy is declared, at least if the restaurant doesn’t suck ass.
However you are correct, there is a warning usually in the menu somewhere that says they can’t promise food won’t be cross contaminated
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.
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.
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
Isn’t this an ADA thing from which they can’t opt out?
Would be even worse if onion rings had Not The Onion in them.
