Michael Harper for redOrbit.com
Wayne Watson, a Centennial, Colorado man, has just earned himself a tidy $7.2 million paycheck the old fashioned way: Eating 2 bags of microwave popcorn every day, making sure to deeply inhale the aroma from the bag immediately after it was cooked.
Diagnosed with something called “popcorn lung,” Watson took the makers of the popcorn, as well as the local grocers who sold it to him, to court, claiming the chemicals used in the artificial butter made it difficult for him to breathe.
Watson was first diagnosed with “popcorn lung,” better known as bronchiolitis obliterans at Denver’s National Jewish Health in 2007 after years of breathing in the steam from popcorn bags, according to his lawyer Kenneth McClain.
The culprit in this case is a chemical named diacetyl, which was once used in the artificial butter for the popcorn. Diacetyl has been at the center of other suits from workers in these popcorn manufacturing plants, and since it has been linked to health problems, has since been removed. Mr. Watson, however, claims Gilster Mary-Lee, the manufacturer of the popcorn, didn’t take steps to warn consumers about the dangers of deeply inhaling multiple popcorn bags a day, a misstep he says makes the company liable for 80% of the $7,217,961 in damages. Watson also brought his suit to the retail grocers who sold him the popcorn, making them liable for 20% of the total damages.
|