A Philadelphia-area man claims he’s suffered “mental anxiety and anguish and severe shock to his entire nervous system” and has been unable to work after he was bitten by a rat while shopping for ribbon at a Dollar Tree store in March. So of course he’s filed a lawsuit.

According to the plaintiff’s lawyer, the man reached to grab some ribbon from a shelf at a Dollar Tree store when he felt a pain in his right index finger: “When he looked in, a rat was biting his finger and would not let go… He actually had to shake the thing loose.”

The man claims to have spotted an entire nest of rats in a box on the shelf. And when a store manager and another employee came over to assist the bitten shopper, three more rats jumped out at them.

The lawyer says the store’s manager told the plaintiff to go to the hospital and send the bills to the Dollar Tree. He did go to the hospital, where he was given antibiotics and had his finger bandaged, but he never sent the bill; he lawyered up instead.

“They took a very dismissive and cavalier attitude to the whole thing,” says the legal eagle. “so I found it necessary to file a suit.”

According to the suit, the plaintiff has yet to regain full use of his finger and has been diagnosed with “significant” post traumatic stress disorder. Because of this, he claims he’s been unable to return to work as a roofer since the incident.

The suit seeks more than $50,000 in compensatory damages.

Suit: Roofer in anguish after rat attack [Philadelphia Inquirer]

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