Roger Branstetter had the most expensive dish of mashed potatoes in history: the Oregon man has just filed a lawsuit against Outback Steakhouse, to the tune of $48,000, because he claims that the potatoes were "hazardous"! 

But before you claim that this is another example of an "overly litigious society," bear this in mind: according to The Huffington Post, he broke two molars when he ate the plate of potatoes at the Portland, Oregon location of the franchised restaurant. The reason? There were bits of porcelain in the creamy concoction... a fact to which the manager of the restaurant later admitted.

Furthermore, according to KOIN-TV, the suit for $48,000 was filed today in Multnomah County Circuit Court. A rep for the restaurant, Jason Bender, refused to comment on the case in detail because of pending litigation, however, he claimed that the restaurant never had a complaint of this nature, and he wasn't aware of any other safety hazards that were extant either in the Portland, Oregon location or at any other Outback Steakhouse location in the United States.

Branstetter's lawsuit, of course, is chump change compared to the so-called "McDonald's Coffee Lawsuit" of 1994, which some legal experts call the "turning point" in tort reform: in Liebeck vs. McDonald's, a New Mexico civil jury awarded $2.86 million to plaintiff Stella Liebeck who had suffered third-degree burns in her pelvic region when she accidentally spilled hot coffee in her lap after purchasing it from a McDonald's restaurant. Liebeck was hospitalized for eight days while she underwent skin grafting, followed by two years of medical treatment. The case was said by some to be an example of frivolous litigation; at the time, ABC News called the case "the poster child of excessive lawsuits," while the legal scholar Jonathan Turley argued that the claim was "a meaningful and worthy lawsuit." In June 2011, HBO premiered Hot Coffee, a documentary that discussed in depth how the Liebeck case has centered in debates on tort reform.