A police officer in Oklahoma City is taking Taco Bell to court after he said he received burns after a quesadilla was made too hot.
Shawn Byrne stopped at a Taco Bell on his way home from work in February and ordered a steak quesadilla.
By his third bite, he realized something was not right. His attorney said his mouth started badly burning, KFOR reported.
The burn was so bad that he went to a doctor the next morning and found that his throat had severe burns.
He did what any police officer would do, filed a police report and had the leftover food tested.
"The Department of Agriculture said there was an extremely hot pepper sauce on the sandwich and there was cologne in the sandwich also. Shawn does not wear cologne," Byrne's attorney, Bryan Dell, told KFOR.
Byrne said he was still in uniform when he stopped at the fast food restaurant and claimed that employees were laughing at him.
"There's a possibility they wanted to deliberately cause some harm or play a trick, if you will, on a policeman," Dell told KFOR.
The police department investigated Byrne’s claims, interviewed employees at the restaurant and submitted charges to the district attorney. He declined to prosecute.
Byrne is now taking the chain to civil court.
Dell says that the employees tampered with the food deliberately, but didn’t expect to get caught because they didn’t think it would cause injury.
Byrne is asking for $75,000 in damages due to the burns.
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