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I’d like a Cheeseburger, Large Fry and an Iced Bleach.

8:24 AM EDT on October 10, 2007

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Geeze, and I thought their inability to get my order right was kind of screwed up.

The Lost Ogle has learned that the little restaurant that we love to hate"“Braum's"“ is involved in a lawsuit for allegedly serving someone a bleachy chemical cocktail in place of an iced tea. The man suing Braum's, Robert Gump, claims that on March 09, 2004, he ordered a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit and a large iced tea. We know this because it is what Robert said in an official court deposition that was secretly obtained* by The Lost Ogle:

They handed me a large cup of what I presumed to be iced tea. It had a lid on it. As I was pulling out, I put a straw in it, and due to my thirst, took a very large drink of tea. At the time, I immediately knew something was wrong"¦a lot of issues went through my mind. First issue was, "I've been poisoned." I was so, I guess, shocked. I immediately had a horrible taste in my mouth, in my nasal area. My throat was burning"¦

I have to get out of the truck and vomit. I then pull the truck into a parking space, get out, and run into the bathroom. All the while, I'm burnt "“ my throat is burning "“ I'm obviously scared. I get in the bathroom, and I just turn the faucet on an start to consume with my hands in my mouth, getting as much water in there as I can to attempt to flush this from my system. In doing so, I vomit, "“ I'm vomiting back up the water I'm drinking. My throat is burning worse. My nasal "“ I'm burning "“ everything back in my throat and nasal areas are extremely hot.

Linkage: The secretly obtained* court documents.

My Thoughts: After the jump ... 

Disclaimer:
Keep in the mind, the court documents are just a small smidgen of the testimony in this case. What the secretly obtained* papers do not mention is that Gump alleges that his health and livelihood has been changed by drinking the urn cleaner, and that it's threatened (or possibly ended?) his sales career.

Knowing that, we assume that Gump is probably asking for a bunch of money. We also assume that Braum's doesn't want to pay him, hence the court battle. Hopefully, now that we've "uncovered" the case, someone in the "real" media (i.e. some place with a budget) will do some actual reporting on this, and give us both sides to the story.

Until then, here are some of my observations/comments:

"¢ In the secretly obtained* court documents, Braum's claims that a former employee, Kimberly Rollerson, testified that "standard operating" procedure was used to rinse the iced tea urns at the beginning of the day. By making this statement, Braum's seems to imply that there is no way that the iced tea urns could have cleaner in them.

Come on!

Have the attorneys who represent Braum's actually ever been to Braum's? I'm sure that Braum's also has a standard operating procedure to "leave pickles off a hamburger when requested" or "make sure that all food is served in a timely, efficient manner," but they seem to screw that stuff often enough, so I wouldn't be surprised if that iced tea urn wasn't rinsed and emptied.

"¢ For some reason, this snippet from the secretly obtained* court documents makes me giggle:

Braum's sent the tea to OK Food Labs, an independent laboratory, for testing. The test show that there was no urn cleaner of anything harmful in the tea. Although Braum's specifically requested and paid for the storage of the tea, the laboratory subsequently lost or discarded the tea.

Talk about cruel irony. How many times have you "specifically requested and paid for" something at Braum's, and then had them subsequently lose or discard it. Payback is a bitch

"¢ I think this lawsuit is Karma getting back at Braum's for refusing to give-in to the (now standard) free refill trend of the early 90s. Seriously, when did they start offering free refills? 2005? And I'm still somewhat shocked they did it then. I figured they'd do what Mazzios did in the 1980's and make you buy a little plastic yellow Braum's cup to get free refills.

"¢ I think it's funny that a guy named Robert Gump filed the lawsuit. I also think that it's funny that Gump drinks iced tea at 7:00am. But I think it's ridiculously STUPID that Gump insinuated that the African-American employees at Braum's may have intentionally served him the bleach because he is a white guy. Trust me, Braum's employees do not discriminate. They don't care what you look like or where you are from, they will always screw up your order. Guaranteed.

* Editor's Note:
Isn't that whole "secretly obtained" thing kind of cool sounding? I hope so, because it's actually a lie. I had to go Downtown to court house to get the court papers. This is what I learned from that experience: It is legal for our civic government to price gouge and charge an outrageous fifty-cents per page copying fee. The district court does not accept debit/credit cards. It's cash and checks only gentlemen. Thank god I had $10 cash on me.

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