Cowboys Coach Sues McDonald’s Over Salad Rat

Between getting yelled at by Terrell Owens, watching his quarterbacks throw four interceptions in prime time, and now this, it’s been a bad week for Todd Haley.

Dallas Cowboys passing game coordinator Todd Haley is suing a suburban [Dallas] McDonald’s after claiming his wife and their family’s au pair found a dead rat in their salad. The lawsuit filed Thursday in state district court seeks $1.7 million in damages, The Dallas Morning News reported on its Web site.

In addition to Haley, who got in a well-publicized shouting match with Terrell Owens earlier this month, the suit was also filed on behalf of his wife, Christine, and the family’s live-in babysitter, Kathryn Kelley.

The dead rodent, believed to be a juvenile roof rat, was about 6 inches long and was found on its back with its mouth opened, Scott Casterline, a spokesman for the family, told The Associated Press.

He said the women didn’t find the rat until taking the salad home to eat, and that a manager from the McDonald’s “didn’t offer any comfort” after driving to their house to see the rodent. The suit was filed after the restaurant didn’t follow through on promises “to make things right,” he said. “The family needs closure,” Casterline told The Associated Press. “It came to a point where you have to draw a line.”

Of course, if Haley were held to the same standards as he holds minimum wage workers at Mickey-D’s, he’d have been sued for all the dropped passes, interceptions, and bizarre Red Zone play calling that he’s subjected Dallas Cowboys fans to this season. Where do we get our closure?

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Is there the slightest chance that who the salad was for was known by one of those minimum wage (actually in my part of Texas, McD pays well above minimum wage so who knows) workers and the rat is a comment on the Cowboys passing game?

  2. DaveD says:

    I haven’t been to McD’s in a long time. Don’t they have a salad bar where you put your own salad together? Maybe Haley has a son that slipped it in to scare his sister or mom and now is too freakin’ scared to come clean on his practical joke.

  3. DaveD,

    I have never heard of a salad bar at a McD. All is pre-packaged. If they don’t have the salad you want ready made, someone in the back would make it. Of course given that the salad went home and the rat was discovered there, you can’t rule out the sick little brother prank either.