Firm sued over fight at McDonald's

By Sonja Isger, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 8, 2002

Five Palm Beach County adults came to the McDonald's drive-through looking for a cheap dinner of burgers and fries, but when they asked for some ketchup and straws to go with, they say they triggered a ketchup-throwing melee that ended with one customer sprawled on the floor inside under a pile of kicking, hair-pulling burger flippers.

Carmen Beauchamp, who was at the bottom of that pile, didn't press charges in the Jan. 4 fight at the McDonald's at 100 State Road 7, but Tuesday she filed a lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, asking that the local McDonald's management company pick up more than $15,000 in medical bills.

"This is an ongoing matter and we caution anyone from jumping to conclusions before all the facts are in," said a written reply from Mark Watson, owner of Melton Management.

Beauchamp, 31, a pharmacy technician, said the ordeal started when the drive-through girl smarted off to Beauchamp's brother, Francisco "Frank" Acevedo.

"She said, 'You'll have to (expletive) wait,' " Beauchamp said.

The teenage girl returned and proceeded to bean a handful of packets at him through the window.

Acevedo went inside to complain to the manager and when Beauchamp walked in, she heard the drive-through girl say she didn't do it.

"I got mad. I said, 'Yes, you did.' The next thing I knew I was on the floor by the french fries. I was being kicked. They were pulling at my hair. A lot of pieces of my hair were gone."

Beauchamp said she was pulled down by the drive-through worker and another employee who Beauchamp's attorneys say is the girl's sister. The girls aren't named in the police report or the lawsuit because they are minors.

But Acevedo said that once his sister was on the floor, several other McDonald's employees piled on.

Police made more than one trip to the scene of the fight that evening, according to dispatch reports. But no one made a report until an hour later, according to a Palm Beach County sheriff's report. The report notes that witnesses saw the drive-through employee hurl ketchup packets and straws at a customer, but more than one also said a "customer" came into the fast food joint and threw a soda at one of the employees.

The report concluded, "At this point it is unclear what happened and it is unclear who is the victim. Nobody wanted to press charges, everybody just wanted to end the incident."

Beauchamp said she must see a psychiatrist, cope with a recurring case of stress-induced hives and is in need of "painful, elongated hair replacement with a few thousand grafts" that could cost $15,000.

The manager that day fired the two girls, according to the report and the suit.

"We used to love McDonald's," Beauchamp said. "Especially my kids. Now I tell them, we're going to Burger King."