Klemick & Gampel Blog

Burger King Patron Bites into Burger and Finds Condom..

When a man began to chew on his Burger King Whopper in Montpelier, Vt., last June, something didn’t feel or taste right. What Van Hartless pulled from the inside of his mouth was an open condom.

This month, Hartless filed suit in Rutland Superior Court against store owner Carrols Corp., of Syracuse, N.Y. Hartless claims he’s suffered from vomiting, nightmares and emotional distress. He has seen a doctor and had tests performed, since he isn’t sure if the condom had been used.

Hartless, 24, is a student at Green Mountain College. In wake of other instances across the country where restaurant patrons planted evidence in hopes of winning a claim in court, Hartless took a lie-detector test. His attorney, Devin McLaughlin, said his client “passed with flying colors.”

The Fair Haven, Vt. resident discovered the foreign object in his sandwich June 18, when he arrived home, unwrapped the sandwich and began to eat it. "It was a very sour, bitter sort of taste. It almost had a numbing sensation,” Hartless said. "As I went to bite down a little harder, I felt a rubber grind in between my teeth. I saw it half in my mouth, half hanging out. It was an immediate sick-to-my-stomach type of thing."