A jury awarded a Florida woman $14 million for injuries after she unknowingly swallowed metal nails and shards concealed in an ice cream cone — creating complications that left her unable to have children.
In September of 2018, Brandy Buckley pulled up to the drive-through window of Bruster’s ice cream store – advertised with the sign out front as “Real Ice Cream” – and soon found out what she ordered did not live up to the sign’s name.
Buckley ordered a butter pecan ice cream and took a couple bites only to eventually discover it was laced with “multiple metal nails and/or metal shards,” according to her lawsuit filed in 2019 in Brevard County state court.
The Palm Bay woman didn’t realize the problem at first when she took a big bite.
“When I did swallow, I did feel something in my throat that kind of got stuck,” she told WESH2. “I thought it was a pecan because it was a butter pecan ice cream that I had purchased.”
Then her son asked if he could have a taste. When she started to scoop some out she “noticed there was a metal nail in like in the cone, almost embedded, it looked like in the cone.”
The “pecan” had not gone down her throat easily, so she decided to go to one of the hospitals in the Palm Bay area about 30 miles south of the Kennedy Space Center. She wanted to get an X-ray.
“Just to be clear, to make sure that’s what it was, a pecan, and it wasn’t,” Buckley said. “It was a nail. So, I had swallowed a nail.”
That revelation was only the beginning of a series of medical treatments, according to Alpizar Law, the firm that represented her.
Surgeons removed one of the nails as well as multiple pieces of metal, the firm said, only to later develop complications. She suffered a portal vein thrombosis, where a blood clot blocks the narrow vein carrying blood to the liver as well as internal bleeding.
That prompted another procedure, which resulted in permanent infertility, according to the law firm.
Her lawsuit sought damages for “pain and suffering, disability, disfigurement, mental anguish, loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life” as well as hospital expenses and other damages.
The inability to have more children was especially painful, Buckley said, as she very much wanted to have more children.
“That was my goal, and my dream was to have more kids,” she told WESH2.
Bruster’s stores use “certified ice cream makers” to mix and freeze their blends on-site daily, but that process broke down, Buckley’s complaint stated, allowing a dangerous product to be served to its customers.
The lawsuit was filed against the parent company, Malabar Creameries, doing business as Bruster’s. The company denied the complaint’s allegations when it was filed, even claiming Buckley was negligent and their product was not “defective.”
A Brevard County jury disagreed.
“We are grateful that this jury of six fulfilled their civic duty and listened carefully to all of the evidence,” her attorney, John Alpizar, told News6. “This verdict reflects the seriousness of the harm our client endured and ensures accountability at all levels.”
However, her counsel also expects the case to be appealed by the ice cream maker. That means it could be years before she sees any compensation in the case, Alpizar said.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
