Late one evening last September, Caryl Jones ordered an iced tea at the drive-through of the McDonald’s near her Northwest Baltimore home. But that’s not what she got, according to her lawsuit in Baltimore City Circuit Court.

What Jones got was another sort of “T”: Triazinetrione — Dichloro-s-Triazinetrione Dihydrate, to be exact — better known as “McD Sanitizer,” a cleaning chemical intended for use on kitchen equipment and surfaces, according to her lawyer.

“She took a sip, it burned her mouth and she spit it out,” said Patricia S. Steiger, of the Law Offices of Seymour Goldstein.

Jones, an administrative assistant, convinced the restaurant employees to open the closed interior of the restaurant in the 4200 block of Mortimer Ave., Steiger said. The workers gave her some milk — and a sample of what she unwittingly put in her mouth, the lawyer said.

“They gave her a packet like the one that had been in there — as a matter of knowing what it was — to take with her and then she went to the emergency room” at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Steiger said.

There, doctors determined Jones had “a mild or moderate chemical reaction,” Steiger said, and eventually diagnosed her with chemical pharyngitis and tonsillitis. By mid-November, she had made a full recovery, according to Steiger.

In the suit filed last week, Jones seeks $100,000 on counts of negligence and breach of warranty.

Franchise owner Cynthia Brown declined to comment on the pending litigation, instead issuing an e-mailed statement through a McDonald’s spokeswoman.

“Nothing is more important to me than the well-being of my customers,” the e-mail said. “Rest assured, we take this matter seriously.”

According to label information from the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency, a packet of “McD Sanitizer,” produced by Greensboro, N.C.-based Kay Chemical International Inc. exclusively for McDonald’s, is meant to be combined with gallons of water to clean “shake/soft serve machines, kitchen utensils, kitchen equipment, counter tops and tables.”

At this point, Steiger said, she does not know “who mixed it, when they mixed it or how they mixed it.”

The chemical is a skin irritant and swallowing it could result in mucosal damage, according to the PMRA report. Jones did not swallow the solution, Steiger said.

Asked where this suit fits among others against fast-food chains for defective products — scalding hot coffee, for example — Steiger said her case is “much simpler.”

“It wasn’t iced tea; it was cleaning solution,” she said. “It’s not a matter of degrees. She was given something that was not meant to be consumed.”

Source: MDRecord  Link Filed under Weird US News