A Man Is Suing Whataburger for Nearly $1 Million for Messing Up His Order

A Texas man is suing Whataburger for allegedly serving him onions after he specifically asked them not to, seeking to bleed the burger chain of no more than $1 million.

According to court documents filed April 25 in Harris County, Demery Ardell Wilson claims he suffered an allergic reaction when Whataburger ignored his no-onions request, thereby failing to meet the “appropriate standard of care,” the Houston Chronicle reported.

The incident in question occurred on July 24, 2024, when Wilson, presumably expecting a safe, onion-free meal, instead bit into an onion-laden burger. The exact order wasn’t detailed, but the classic Whataburger does come standard with onions, and if you’ve ever customized a fast food burger, you know those requests are often treated as mere suggestions by their burger artisans.

Wilson alleges that Whataburger’s onion inclusion amounted to a “manufacturing defect,” describing the meal as “unsafe to eat” and “unreasonably dangerous.” You’d think he was describing a faulty building material that caused a house to collapse, but no, he’s talking about a burger with some onions on it. To Wilson, who has an onion allergy, the burger was a death trap.  

He’s suing for between $250,000 and $1,000,000 in damages, including medical expenses and whatever else the discovery process can dig up. His lawyer, Husein Hadi of the Hadi Law Firm, has yet to comment, but he’s no stranger to this kind of culinary litigation, and neither is Wilson, as they both previously teamed up to sue Sonic Drive-In for some kind of personal injury claim. That case was dismissed a month after it was filed.

The lawsuit doesn’t mention which specific Whataburger location served up the onion-laced poison, which means it can be any one of the 764 locations in Texas, with 57 in Houston alone. Good god, that’s a lot of Whataburgers.