A man in his 40s this week died of a heart attack while eating a 6,000-calorie Triple Bypass burger at an aptly named chain that serves up massive burgers and allows grossly obese individuals to eat for free. We previously looked at Heart Attack Grill when its overweight spokesman died at 29. The question is whether a restaurant can be sued for knowingly serving food that comes with a higher risk of death or serious bodily injury — a risk that is openly advertised by the restaurant and assumed by the customer.
With the recommended caloric intake of an adult male set at 2500 calories, diners at the Heart Attack Grill can easily consume roughly 400 percent of the daily calories in a single artery-clogging, heart-stopping meal.
On Saturday, a customer in Las Vegas suffered a cardiac arrest at the table as other customers reportedly jockeyed to take pictures of him. The Triple Bypass Burger contains three slabs of meat, 12 rashes of bacon and cheese as well as a “unique special sauce.”
The owner, John Basso, was aghast at the behavior of the other customers (who may have believed this was a stunt). A former nutritionist and manager of a Jenny Craig weight loss diet center, Basso insisted that “[e]ven with our own morbid sense of humor, we would never pull a stunt like that.”
They would, however, keep serving heart attacks on a bun with “Flatline Fries.”
While I find the restaurant perfectly disgusting, I would have problems with a torts lawsuit when customers clearly understand the risks. Indeed, a sign at the front of the restaurant proudly proclaims “Go away. If you come in this place, it’s going to kill you.” There are a wide array of foods that are bad for you. However, courts have never said that serving up such dishes is akin to a food version of a dram shop violation.
In our previously discussion, we saw how the restaurant enlisted Blair River (a 572-pound obese man) as their spokesman. River, 29, died from pneumonia — a death connected to his obesity by critics.
The Heart Attack Grill food posts a warning that eating at the restaurant “may include sudden weight gain, repeated increase of wardrobe size, back pain, male breast growth, loss of sexual partners, lung cancer, tooth decay and liver sclerosis stroke. In some cases mild death may occur.” This death does not appear quite mild for the tourist but the food was certainly served as advertised.
Source: Daily Mail
Somehow I feel like this is a ploy seeing how Carolina is a swing state and this article relates deregulation and smaller government to this direct incident with a turkey sandwich. Not much black and white thinking going on here with by partisan politics… Yeah heaven forbid a turkey sandwich is more controversial than people like Bernie Madoff and Jack Abramoff being able to run unchecked for years because of poor regulation and putting dirty money into politics.
If you can sue a restaurant for selling a burger that could potentially kill you then you can sue cigarette companies for potentially killing you too? You know the risk, is this not a situation you are putting yourself into. No one forces you to eat a life threatening sized burger just as no one forces you to smoke, take responsibly for your own actions it is part of being an adult.
Prowebuser,
actually the first spokesman was in a coma and had like 2 or 3 heart surgeries they needed another spokesman to replace him while he recovered. thats when they got River to be the spokesman he was 29 and died from pneumonia, but by him being overweight contributed to him not getting well from the pneumonia. now they have the original spokesman back. so yes the guy did die.
Darwin would have loved this.
Well, here’s two facts that we do know:
Last year when the Heart Attack Grill’s spokesperson, Mr. Blair River – the proud mound of ground round – collapsed and died, it was a very sad day in Chandler, Arizona.
And the cosmic scoreboard that week – for those interested at all – looked like this:
Death Toll:
Errant Health Care: +/- 2,800
Heart Attack Grill : 1
Personally, I’ll take the lard burger & fries.
🙂
No, bdaman, brown is scary. Heard that from some of my GOP acquaintances. Gotta watch out for scary brown, whether it is whole grain bread like the kid’s sandwich or “those” people. Brown is only acceptable in the case of nuts, such as pecans, or Allen West.
Hmmmm…..