Justin Grogg, Red Lobster Customer, Sues Over 'Poison Beer' At Dallas Location

Some teetotalers are fond of saying that alcohol is a poison. But on a business trip to Dallas, Panama City resident Justin Grogg discovered that you can accidentally ingest far worse poisons than alcohol while drinking beer. Like potassium hydroxide -- aka lye.

Grogg revealed the horrific chain of events that led to his ingestion of the caustic substance in a lawsuit filed in Dallas County Court [pdf] on May 7, 2013, first reported upon by the Dallas Observer.

He met a business contact for lunch at the Red Lobster on Dallas's Technology Boulevard at 11 a.m. on May 4, 2011 and ordered a glass of draught Budweiser. Immediately after taking a sip, his throat, esophagus and stomach started to burn. He hailed the restaurant's manager, who told him to go to "drink water and go to the hospital." According to Grogg's complaint, the manager knew that the beer tap system had been cleaned with potassium hydroxide, which can cause severe bodily harm if swallowed, that very morning.

Doctors at the hospital treated Grogg quickly enough that he made it out of Dallas without anything much worse than "severe pain." But they told him that he could develop "esophageal strictures, esophageal reflux changes, and/or pharyngeal infection in the future as a result of the ingestion of the potassium hydroxide," according to Grogg's complaint.

Grogg is now seeking damages between $50,000 and $100,000 from Red Lobster and the company that cleaned the Dallas location's beer tap system on the morning of the incident to compensate for his physical pain and medical expenses.

HuffPost's request for comment from Darden Restaurants, which owns Red Lobster, was not immediately returned.