Oregon Man Files Lawsuit After Breaking Teeth On Glass In Mashed Potatoes


A man in Portland, Oregon found something in his mashed potatoes that you would never expect to find. Roger Branstetter was visiting his local Outback Steakhouse, located at 11146 S.W. Barnes Road in Portland, on February 17, 2012. It was just a normal dinner, like any other, until he received his order of mashed potatoes. You will never guess what was accompanying the potatoes… glass!

He did not realize that there was anything wrong with his potatoes until he took a nice big bite. That bite lead to him breaking two of his teeth on the bits of porcelain that were scattered throughout his dish. Per his dentist’s advice, Branstetter had to have both of his molars removed and replaced with dental implants.

According to The Oregonian, Branstetter is now suing Evergreen Restaurant Group, who owns the franchise, for the damages he received. He filed the suit last week at the Multmonah County Circuit Court, and is seeking $48,000.

According to the suit, Branstetter said that the manager of the steakhouse admitted that a dinner plate had broken in the kitchen, and that he knew pieces of glass had fallen into the mashed potatoes. This should immediately make Outback question the character of their employees. Why would someone serve a dish knowing that there were pieces of glass mixed into it?

Branstetter stated in the suit that the company was negligent in not telling their customers about the dinner plate breaking, and for not throwing out the potatoes when they realized they were tainted. According to the suit, the manager and other employees should have told the customers so that they were free to “make their own informed decision regarding whether to eat food that might contain sharp, hard, dangerous, and potentially deadly pieces of a broken plate.”

Jason Bender, a managing partner of Evergreen Restaurant Group, did not go into detail about the incident. However, he did say that the company has been open since 1997 and they have never had any instances like this. He said that the company values safety, and try to keep the work conditions of their employees and their customers as safe as possible. “It’s really disappointing when someone gets hurt inside the restaurant,” Bender said.

Luckily, Branstetter only suffered injuries to his teeth. Had he ingested the glass, it could have been “fatal, if it punctured internal organs such as the (customer’s) esophagus, stomach or intestines.”

[Image via Bing]

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