An Oregon man is suing Outback Steakhouse for $48,000 after breaking two of his teeth when he bit into mashed potatoes that contained pieces of broken porcelain.
The Associated Press reported that Roger Branstetter filed a suit in Multnomah County Circuit Court claiming that he was forced to pull out two teeth and replace them with implants after cracking the molars on pieces of broken porcelain while dining out in Feb. 2012.
The managers at the restaurant "admitted to plaintiff that a plate had broken in the kitchen and that pieces had fallen into the mashed potatoes," the suit stated, according to OregonLive.com.
Branstetter is asking for $48,000 in damages, stating the restaurant's negligence in not letting customers know about the broken dishes and not letting customers "make their own informed decision regarding whether to eat food that might contain sharp, hard, dangerous and potentially deadly pieces of a broken plate."
The suit also stated that broken plate pieces can be potentially "fatal, if it punctured internal organs such as the (customer's) esophagus, stomach or intestines."
"It's really disappointing when someone gets hurt inside the restaurant," Jason Bender, a managing partner at Evergreen Restaurant Group, whose company was named in the lawsuit, alongside OSI Restaurant Partners and Bloomin' Brands.
Bender did not speak in detail about the incident but stated that customer safety is very important. The suit was filed by Portland attorney Roger Gray.
