Van Miguel Hartless is suing the owner of a Rutland Burger King after biting into a Southwestern Whopper that contained a used condom. When Hartless complained to the manager, he “laughed off the incident.”
Hartless said during an interview Thursday that the second and last time he visited the Burger King in Rutland was on June 18 when the lure of a home-style hamburger brought him to the restaurant.
“At that time they were promoting the Southwestern Whopper. Being from Texas I was excited. There’s not a lot of spicy food here,” he said.
Hartless, who moved to Fair Haven two years ago, said he didn’t recognize anyone working at the restaurant and as far as he knows, no one in the restaurant knew him.
But while he was ordering his meal, he said the woman taking his order gave him a hard time about doing the order his way.
“I asked for a Whopper with jalapenos and hold the onions,” he said. “The girl told me they didn’t have jalapenos but the last time I was in there they gave me jalapenos. When I said that, she told me that they never carried jalapenos. I told her that was fine, but she pulled out a list and said, ‘Like you see, we don’t carry them.’
“When she read back my order a few minutes later it was wrong,” he added.
Frustrated, Hartless said he sat in a booth to wait for his meal. From the angle of the booth, he said he couldn’t see the kitchen or the person preparing his sandwich.
When his order was ready, he said he took it home with him to Fair Haven where he sat down to dinner with his spouse and stepdaughter. He said after making his gruesome discovery, the rest of the sandwiches were searched but no additional objects were found.
Hartless was rightly incensed by the manager’s crass reaction: “That’s the part that upsets me the most, is that he laughed about it.” Burger King’s official reaction was similarly insensitive. They sent an apology less than a week after the incident that concluded: “Hope you come back and have more pleasurable experience.”
The urge to think “Attention Whore! Frivolous Lawsuit!” is mitigated because Hartless submitted to a polygraph test and seems genuinely troubled. The poor guy was plagued by nightmares, the kind you do not have unless you suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome:
“I know it sounds kind of funny now but I had dreams where I would be doing random things and whatever I was holding would turn into the hamburger or the condom.”
Vermont man alleges he found condom in Burger King burger [The Rutland Herald via BarfBlog]
Photo: Albert J. Marro / Rutland Herald
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Thats pretty messed up.
UGH! No joke, I was on my last bite of a double whopper when I saw this headline.
This is not going to stop me from eating at Burger King since it was probably some disgruntled minimum wage worker lashing out.
But really people, a condom? I guess to be on the safe side we should order our whoppers without the mayo.
thats an impressive fucking name…hell, he should win this case based on his name alone
Im wondering if “the manager” was actually a store manager or a shift leader. I believe the shift leader would laugh since they are usually just as young and stupid as the rest of the workers.
Gee … would he rather the employee not wear a condom during burger-sex?
Out here in the Southwest we do things a lil different.
In all seriousness, it was probably the most nutritious part of the hamburger.
How does he know it was a used condom? Did he inspect it for semen? If opening it constitutes it as being used, than maybe, but I doubt it was used.
Who brings a used condom with them to work?
@GitEmSteveDave: According to their website, there are only two Burger Kings in Vermont.
I won’t be surprised for a minute that this was a fully used condom. This about it, with movies like JackAss, video games like Vice Squad and the crap they watch on TV, teens are more brazen than ever before. Add to that the entitlement mentality Americans now have and you have a recipe for disaster.
When I was a teen, we thought up some bad stuff, but today makes my generation look like angels. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all teens are bad, but the bad ones are much worse today than ever before. And people like moron that was peeing into his bosses’ coffee don’t help matters any.
I hope if this case is on the up and up, the guy gets a ton.
@FromThisSoil: Some jackass teenager that thinks it would be funny to put in someones sandwich…
Who goes to a mall to kill a bunch of people to famous???
Absolutely disgusting.
All I can say is, Should not have ordered it with the special sauce.
Brings new meaning to “mayo” in the bun. YUKKKK.
This is why I never get mayo in fast food.
I found a dead fly inside a McDonalds pancake before i thought THAT was bad
As a shareholder of BKC I can tell you I don’t believe him one bit. We’ve been fooled by the old fake used condom in the sandwich routine before. Next you’ll tell me there was a creamy white substance in it.
No, seriously. That is nasty. I got the McDonalds ’2for2′ Big Macs once, and was chewing a bite of one when I felt a hair in my mouth. I reached in, and pulled out this long brown hair, and I could feel it slithering out of my throat.
Incredibly, the manager did not want to refund my money for the second one because I did not open it so ‘how did I know whether it was bad or not ?’
I have a hard time believing the manager had the balls to laugh.
@jawacg: How is that more unbelievable than the condom being in the burger in the first place?
Burger King finally puts something healthy in a burger and all the customer can do is complain… Seriously, does anyone think a little cum is worse for someone’s health than a fast food hamburger?
(The manager’s reaction sucks, i can understand the customer being pissed. But nightmares? Imagine someone calling you up and completely seriously telling you he’s having nightmares about a condom in his hamburger. You’d laugh too.)
@loueloui: …So if you were a shareholder of McDonald’s, you would have taken that non-existent hair out of your lying mouth’s sensory nerves, then meekly shrugged when the 19-yo fast-food manager told you that “how would you know if it was bad or not?”
Just so I have it straight.
1 more reason to cook your own food at home and save dough!
Another reason to never eat at BK or MCD’s ever again. I am 6months+ sober(from those two places) and proud of it. I used to eat them both all of the time. Now I cannot believe I used to do that. Ick. Its not just horrible that the food is VERY unhealthy, the workforce that mans these businesses typically isn’t a group of people I would trust (angstridden highschoolers, dropouts, etc. – i know, its a stereotype, and its not true everywhere, but it is a general rule lol).
I think time will tell whether he’s telling the truth. The Wendy’s finger in the chili was proven false but it hurt Wendy’s cause the media all jumped on it.
As for polygraphs, I kinda know how to beat one–though never tried but was told by an expert in the field how best to beat the machine. Also, polygraphs are suspicious when paid for by the attorney.
I remember hearing about another condom in fast food story but I think that one was false.
And finally, I’d like to know this guy’s financial situation. Is he in a lot of debt where he is more likely to need commit and maybe commit fraud? Or is he in a good financial situation, good job and little to no debt–makes me less likely to believe he’d pull such a stunt.
I understand that this would take a reform of the legal system, which isnt likely, but in any event…
With all of the hands that the burger goes through until it goes from the freezer at the store and then cooked and then served… wouldnt it be more appropriate to sue the actual location that the incident occured in (unless this hapened to be a corporate owned location, though I dont think many are)? It isnt like there is a BK corporate policy requiring condoms be placed in whoppers? This is an incident that is local, and probably was done by one or two (nasty) people working at that branch. I dont see why BK as a whole should be sued for something happening locally. The lawsuit should be against the branch, and if the branch is able to figure out the culprits, sue them instead or as well. You would have to feel for a franchise owner who is watching his entire livelihood being taken down by a couple of 16 year old douchbags with nothing to loose and no real sense of accountability.
In a hit and run, you dont sue the company that manufactured the car, or the dealership who sold the car. You sue the driver a.k.a the person responsible for the action that took place.
But in any case, the condom was probably the most nutritious thing in the whole “burger” (I dont think fast food deserves to be called an actual burger).
whats on your burger cheese pickles seamen