The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers....

Eh, while we are at it, let's include the insurance agents.

So later on Jun 22nd ((The email, and the "event" happened on Jun 21st)), I get a call from Mr. Vince Ryan.
He seems concerned, wanted information, wanted to know if I had seen a doctor. I went through all the questions. He then requested I sent the item in for testing. I was concerned, since what proof when I sent it in, would it be kept? Would I see it again? I was told to rest assured, that nothing will happen, and that he will send a UPS package with a chain of custody. Here are those items below:

Here is the second:

 And the third:

And the fourth:

And the fifth:

And the last:

Sorry for the pic spam, but I was instructed with situations like this, document, document, document. It was at this point that I wanted to get a legal opinion. I called a few lawyers, but they all said, too small, not worth their time, just go with the process and take more pictures. So left on my own, that is what I did, and they will be in the next post.

~AK

All the King's Men....

Well now that we have established the "star" of the blog, now we can put my response. I could say I was level headed when I wrote this, but as I was fishing for the object out of my throat as I was driving on 22, I was pretty angry, as noted with the email below ((I will apologize for the wall of text ahead of time, I was pretty peeved, and I don't want to take the email out of the form it was sent.))

From: Adam Keller
To: jim.skinner@us.mcd.com,
      mcdbod@us.mcd.com,
      don.thompson@us.mcd.com,
      jose.armario@us.mcd.com,
      peter.benson@us.mcd.com,
      jan.fields@us.mcd.com,
      richard.floersch@us.mcd.com,
      jim.johannesen@us.mcd.com,
      karen.king@us.mcd.com,
      kevin.newell@us.mcd.com,
      gloria.santona@us.mcd.com

Subject: Foreign Object in Food from Location #1491

I would like to begin, that I frequent McDonalds on average of 3-4 times a week. I have probably ate 1500 or so meals there since I can remember. Most of my experiences have been good ones. I have had some less than favorable experiences, but I attribute that to more of the workers than the brand. I was leaving work today, and decided to pick up dinner before I go to classes tonight. I ordered 4 Doublecheese Burgers, no ketchup, no mustard and a Large Diet coke. The address and location is 660 Memorial Parkway E, Phillsburg, NJ 08865 at 4:17pm on 6/21/2012. I have ordered here before, and it was usually the better tasting and staffed McDonalds I have been at. I left the drive through quickly, and pulled out into the 6 lane highway, the location is on. I finished 3 of the sandwiches, before merging onto 22 Eastbound, when I started eating the last one. I was 3/4's through, when I caught the object with my toungue as I was swallowing it. It appears to be a 1inch by 1 inch meat label, that says Wed 29. I quickly thrust my fingers down the back of my throat, in an attempt to get it. I was doing this while swerving in heavy rush hour traffic. I was having problems breathing, but luckily, I grabbed a hold of it and ripped it out. To say I am in pain now would be an understatement. My throat has abrasions, and my voice is horse. I also avoided a traffic accident on a major stretch of highway. Long story short, I am appalled that something like this made it through. The meat is suppost to be cooked well, and since it looks to be a meat label, I have no idea how you would miss it on a piece of meat that is cooked. The label is also sharp, to fingers, it is plastic, has some rigidity, and could produce a paper cut on a finger. In the mouth, throat, stomach, intestines, the damage this sharp label could do, would be much worse. As you can see from the pictures I included with this email, this is not made up, and you can confirm it is the type of meat label that would be used at a store. I am very tempted to contact The NJ Department of Health and Senior Services - Food and Drug Safety program, WTXF FOX 29, WKY-TV CBC 3, WCAU NBC 10, as well as CNN, MSNBC, facebook, twitter, blogs and finally legal representation. I am outraged at the negligence shown by your corporation, as this isn't something just just fell in, or could have been missed. There is no way anyone preparing this food, if they were doing their job would let this happen. I am incensed right now, I almost choked to death on it, and now I am still shaking from the experience. I am trying to keep a calm, rational mind, and will wait for your side and what you have to say. I saved all the items today, and have the sample stored to produce if requested by anyone of the above of you.

Yes, I was pretty angry with that, I did get a funny reply all response below:

King Karen	Jun 22
to me, Skinner, McDonald's, Thompson, Armario, peter.benson, Fields, richard.floers., Johannesen, Newell, Santona

I will handle

I guess someone never learned when Replying All, you will also reply to the person who sent the first message:


Someone did follow up within a few hours, and here is that email:


From: Melina.Hipskind@us.mcd.com

Dear Mr. Keller,

On behalf of McDonald’s Corporation, thank you very much for your e-mail and for bringing this to our attention.  Is there a phone number at which I can reach you?

Kind regards,

Melina Hipskind | Counsel |  McDonald's Corporation
2915 Jorie Blvd. | Oak Brook, Illinois 60523 |(: 630.623.3580|7: 630.623.3374 |*: melina.hipskind@us.mcd.com

The information contained in this electronic communication and any accompanying documents is confidential, written at the direction of McDonald's in-house attorneys and subject to the attorney-client privilege and/or attorney work product privilege. It is the property of McDonald's Corporation.  Unauthorized use, disclosure, forwarding, redistribution and/or reproduction of this communication, its attachments or any part thereof, in any way whatsoever, is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful.  If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, and destroy this communication and all copies, including all attachments.


Rest assured a number was given. As an aside, you won't find anyone's but the Jim Skinner, and Mcdbod emails out there. They all follow the same scheme: FirstName.LastName@us.mcd.com. A few didn't work, but those had a middle initial, that I couldn't discern from this page:

http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company/leadership.html 

The lawyer took some facts from me, and informed me that McDonalds is not responsible, since the location in question is a franchisee, and that their insurance would be getting in touch with me. This is where things start to go south, and we go there in another post.

~AK 

So it begins....

You might be asking yourself, what happens if you bite into a McDonalds food item and find a foreign object in it? Well I can tell you from experience, it isn't pretty, and it also a game of passing the buck. This long story contains posts, emails, and pictures, and the actors from McDonalds as well as their outside franchise, and the insurance company and their dishonorable tactics. Let's begin with the McDonalds corporate structure. 

McDonalds is a corporate entity, it operates much as a sports league does. It had the name, it controls the marketing, it allows franchisees to "play" under the McDonalds banner. McDonalds corporate does the advertising, makes sure it's corporate brand is protected, and as a side bonus, has a hands off policy when anything happens in one of their franchisees. This my friends, is where the "fun" begins.

Meet the "star", what can only be described as a plastic, or plastic coated meat tag, found inside the burger:

Here is a shot of it by itself:

Now we have this setup, where do you go from here? You extract this from your throat, do you sue? How do you go about it? Do you let corporate know and let them do the "right" thing? Tune in for the next installment, and you can see what an angry consumer will do!

~AK