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19-Year-Old Files Lawsuit Against Monster® Energy Drinks After Discovering Dead Mouse

Veronica Werhane |
April 5, 2011 | 2:18 p.m. PDT

Columnist

Monster Energy Drink.  Photo by Flickr.
Monster Energy Drink. Photo by Flickr.
For all of you avid Monster drinkers out there, you may want to reconsider popping open your next can.

Nineteen-year-old Vitality Sulzhik is now filing a lawsuit against the maker of Monster Energy Drinks® after discovering a dead mouse at the bottom of his drink. This story seemed like a bad April Fool’s sham at first, but this lawsuit proves to be far from a joke.

A year ago, Sulzhik purchased a can of Monster from a Fred Meyer grocery store in Des Moines, Washington. After finishing his drink, Zulzhik noticed something was left in the bottom of the can.

"I put it down and I felt it was still heavy. So I backwashed it and all this debris went into my mouth," says the 19 year old. "Then I looked in the can and I saw the tip of the tail and I vomited everywhere."

After his nauseating episode, Sulzhik contacted attorney Reed Yurchak, who sent the Monster can to MDE Inc. Forensic and Engineering Laboratories in Seattle for testing. The lab report confirmed it was a mouse at the bottom, but there were no signs of death by trauma (like from a mouse trap) or poison, suggesting that the mouse was not killed and then somehow forced into the can.

According to Yurchak, he’s been trying for a year now to seek compensation from the company that makes Monster. Receiving no response from the company, Sulzhik finally decided to take legal action. Yurchak shares with Slashfood.com:

“It's one of those situation where you wouldn't want it to have to come to this. And it wouldn't have if we'd gotten any sort of response from the company. But they just kept stonewalling.”

Though aware of the laboratory findings, Monster Energy Drinks apparently does not believe Sulzhik’s story. The company also declined to comment on the lawsuit. Sulzhik says he does not plan on drinking anything from a can ever again. Not too surprising.

Even creepier, this may not be the first time someone has found a little “monster” in their Monster—Yurchak says a woman contacted him when he filed the lawsuit and claimed that she, too had found a dead mouse in a can of Monster a few years prior. Her compensation for the incident? A free case of Monster.

I doubt this incident will cause every single person to condemn canned beverages and stop drinking Monster. However, the makers of this popular energy drink might want to rethink their slogan “Unleash the Beast.”

Send your food questions/suggestions (recipe ideas, restaurant recommendations, food questions, cooking tips, anything food related) to Veronica. Your questions and comments might be featured in next week’s column!



 

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