Fast-food foulup in West Virginia results in huge lawsuit

Quite often on this blog, we rail at the incompetence of minimum-wage fast food workers who can't seem to understand what "plain" or "no pickles" or "Diet Coke" means.

We've never been tempted to sue, but someone in our neighboring state to the east has sued, claiming all sorts of problems resulted when a Morgantown, WV-area McDonald's didn't hold the cheese on his Quarter Pounder.

The Charleston Daily Mail has the story of a Clarksburg man who claims he had an allergic reaction to the cheese that McDonald's put on his burger after he specifically requested no cheese, please. He's suing for $10 million.

Wonder how long the minimum-wage employee who screwed that order up would have to work for his salary to pay the judgment should the plaintiff win? McDonald's will be attaching the paychecks of his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren to pay off that liability.

But we have to ask, where is the personal responsibility in all of this? Why didn't the guy look to see if there was any of the offensive yellow stuff on his burger before he ate it? After all, he bought the burger at Star City (which is north of Morgantown near the Pennsylvania state line) and didn't eat it until he got back to Clarksburg, which is at least a half-hour drive away on the interstate.

And why would anyone get food at a Star City McDonald's and take it all the way home to Clarksburg? There is a McDonald's at the Clarksburg exit and his burger would have had to be stone cold by the time he got it home.

At any rate, maybe the publicity from this lawsuit (which may end up rivaling the Washington DC pants-at-the-drycleaner story) may make restaurant managers stress to their minimum wage employees the importance of getting customers' orders right.