With a cancer-laden colon, spine, lung and brain, a 61-year-old Galveston, Texas, man was already in rough shape. Little did he know Death would take a wild grab at him through an excessively-peppered breakfast burrito.

For the past year, Marcus Long had eaten a daily McDonald’s breakfast. His mouth sensitive and raw, their burritos were easy to chew. Then one morning, Long began choking. Black pepper darkened his mouth and flew from his nose with violent sneezes. Long’s orifices started bleeding, and didn’t stop for two days.

“I looked inside the burritos and they were just black,” Long’s wife recalled. “You could hardly see the egg.”

Finding no sympathy or apology from McDonald’s, the Longs sued.

Their lawyer, Leonard Cruse, is quick to separate his clients’ suit from other cases against the chain. “It’s totally different factually from the fat kids suing McDonald’s for their weight gain,” said Cruse. “I don’t have any sympathy for those folks.” :

» Scott Saxon