Claim Jumper Restaurant Settles Condom-In-My-Soup Lawsuit

Man says to his waiter, What's this condom doing in my soup? Waiter shrugs, The backstroke? But seriously, the punchline is that 51-year-old Philip Hodousek is getting a settlement from Claim Jumper after he claimed to have found a prophylactic in his French onion soup last year in Orange County.

How much is it worth? The parties aren't saying, but it took three days of negotiations, so you could say it took some massaging to get this particular condom off Claim Jumper's back. Orange County Superior Court Judge Geoffrey T. Glass hard ordered both sides to, er, come together and deal with this mess.

"The settlement is not to be construed as an admission of liability by either party,'' reads a joint statement by attorneys representing Philip Hodousek and his wife Sherry and Irvine Claim Jumper Restaurants.

"Claim Jumper sincerely regrets, and apologizes for, statements which have appeared in the media which have cast Mr. and Mrs. Hodousek, in an unfavorable light. With the conclusion of this litigation, Claim Jumper wishes the plaintiffs well and sincerely hopes that they are successful in putting this regrettable incident behind them,'' the statement said.

The company previously denied that there was a condom in Philip Hodousek's soup or that any employees had done anything wrong.

The claim stemmed from an April 12, 2009 visit to the Claim Jumper at 27845 Santa Margarita Parkway in Mission Viejo.

According to a trial brief (NSFL - not safe for lunch warning):

Suddenly, he felt what he believed was tough cheese on one side of this mouth. When he could not chew it into pieces, Philip commented to his family that it felt like rubber. He then spit it out, spooned it onto a napkin, at which time his wife said, 'Oh my God, it's a condom.'

Chew on that.

-With reporting from City News Service. Got news? Email us. Follow us on Twitter, too: @dennisjromero.