Pepsi Co. is being sued by a man in Illinois who claims that he found a dead mouse in a can of Mountain Dew, but Pepsi says that it’s impossible. Why? It’s not because Pepsi has such high standards when it comes to work place cleanliness, but because a mouse carcass would have completely dissolved if it was placed in Mountain Dew.
Yep, Pepsi is pulling the ol’ “our product is so acidic that it would be impossible for an animal carcass to survive for more than a few days” defense. It’s genius.
Pepsi didn’t say that the Plaintiff, Ronald Ball, lied about finding a mouse in a can of Mountain Dew. The company just said that his story was ridiculous. If there was a mouse in the can, according to Pepsi, Ball would have found a “jelly-like substance,” not a whole mouse.
According to the Madison Record, Plaintiff Ronald Ball claims that he found a dead mouse in a can of soda that he purchased from a vending machine. Ball took a sip of the soda, tasted something foul, then spit out a dead mouse.
The Atlantic Wire reports that Pepsi’s lawsuit defense is “a winning-the-battle-while-surrendering-the-war” sort of strategy. Pepsi may have proven that Ball didn’t “spit out the soda to reveal a dead mouse,” but they also proved that Mountain Dew has more in common with battery acid than soda.
Ball is seeking more than $50,000 from his lawsuit. Ball claims that he sent the mouse to Pepsi when he filed the lawsuit in 2009 and that the company destroyed it, presumably, by letting it sit in a can of Mountain Dew for a few days.
Do you drink Mountain Dew? Will you continue to drink Mountain Dew?
