Virrueta

BACKGROUND

On December 10, 2017, plaintiff purchased a beverage from a Starbucks store in Alhambra with whole strawberries in the bottom of the clear cup. Plaintiff drank about half of the beverage and put the rest in her refrigerator. Within three or four hours, she began to feel cramping in her stomach and had diarrhea. Later that evening, she vomited. Plaintiff did not think much of this, however, because she had the same kind of beverage before and it never made her sick. Moreover, she had not noticed anything wrong with the beverage’s texture, taste, or anything else. The next morning, plaintiff felt better but dehydrated. She took the beverage from her refrigerator, finished drinking it, and began eating the whole strawberries in the bottom of the cup. After eating a few, she saw about three maggots in the cup that she believes came from the strawberries. She “got disgusted” and stopped eating the strawberries. She photographed what she believed to be a maggot. The cup and its remaining contents were later thrown out.

2 Plaintiff’s opening brief asserts without record citation that it was “at this point”—after seeing the maggots—that she “got so ill that she presented to…