Prisoner Sues Over Fingertip in Food

A state prison inmate has sued over a fingertip in his frozen dinner -- and this time the food company isn’t crying fraud.

Pelican Bay State Prison inmate Felipe Rocha was polishing off his dinner one evening in March when he “chewed on a crunchy object” in his cornbread and discovered the fingertip, according to the lawsuit against GA Food Services Inc. filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco. He hasn’t been quite the same since, the suit says.

The Florida company wrote a letter of apology to the prison about the “foreign object” in the food and acknowledged that a worker “severed” the tip of a finger while cleaning machinery when the cornbread was produced last July.

“There’s probably some substance to Mr. Rocha’s claims,” John Hale, chief operating officer of GA Food Services, said Friday.

“We had an industrial accident that day -- it was a laceration,” he said, adding that the worker still “has all his fingers” but needed sutures. “We’re red-faced about it. We’re apologetic about it,” he said.

As if chomping on a bit of finger wasn’t bad enough, Rocha’s attorney said it was particularly offensive for his client because he is a Buddhist -- and a vegetarian. Attorney Jeffrey Schwarzschild said Rocha, who is serving time for a drug conviction, was traumatized, lost 15 pounds in six days because he couldn’t eat and is still in counseling.

Schwarzschild said he would seek at least $75,000 in damages if the case went to trial.

The last complaint in California about a finger in food came from Las Vegas resident Anna Ayala, who claimed she bit into a fingertip in a bowl of chili at a Wendy’s restaurant in San Jose. But Wendy’s officials insisted that the digit had been planted so Ayala could get money from the company.

She was charged in June with conspiracy to commit fraud and grand theft.