Folks who go to McDonald’s sometimes have a beef with the experience. When this occurs they may turn to the legal system for redress. For the lawyer they hire, it was in fact a happy meal.

Not long ago there were news accounts of a lawsuit filed against McDonald’s in Illinois state court. At issue – an allegedly defective Chicken McNugget. According to the Chicago Tribune, a golden arches patron alleged that, in May 2013, he ate a Chicken McNugget containing one or more sharp bone shards that caused him severe injury when he swallowed it. The Tribune stated that the suit contends that McDonald’s employees failed to inspect and test the Chicken McNugget in question for bone fragments prior to serving it.

Now I don’t know how many McNuggets McDonald’s sells a year – but it’s gotta be at least a bazillion. That being so, it is hard to argue with The Wall Street Journal Law Blog’s observation about the suit: “[A]n individual nugget-shard-inspection requirement would seem like a tall order.”

Given the huge number of McDonald’s stores, how many people they serve and the nation’s appetite for litigation, lawsuits against the hamburger purveyor seem inevitable. McDonald’s is also no stranger to the left-side of the caption. It has sued its share of folks for using the name McDonald’s or “Mc” in their business names. [So much for McCoverage Opinions.] To give you an idea of what I’m talking about -- there is an entire Wikipedia entry devoted to “McDonald’s Legal Cases.”

Consider these news headlines that were easily found just using a Google search (and ALL within just the past couple of years)

• “Lawsuit filed: Teen suing McDonald’s restaurant claims his iced tea had bleach, cleaning solution in it” (fox6now.com)

• “Napkin Argument Leads to Customer’s $1.5M Lawsuit Against McDonald’s” (nbclosangeles.com)

• “Man Speared Through Throat By McDonald’s Orange Juice Sues” (jdjournal.com)

• “McDonald’s Sued For $10M After Man Dies Of Heart Attack In Locked Bathroom” (consumerist.com)

• “McDonald’s Is Getting Sued Again Over Alleged Hot Coffee Burns” (businessinsitder.com)

The Plaintiff’s lawyer in this Illinois case no doubt has it all figured out. Require McDonald’s to put all of its Chicken McNuggets through an x-ray machine – and then file suit against the company for radiation exposure.