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| Marcelyne Claudais, 1975 |
We don't know where she purchased the butter or how she traveled there. But let's imagine she drove a Dodge Coronet and hummed along to her favourite Harmonium Four-Track as she cruised the wide empty boulevards of desolate 70s Laval. (Could you stop writing and start writing? - Chimples)
Claudais consumed some of her newly-purchased butter during the course of the day, slathering it generously on her toast or crumpet or whatever undisclosed delicious treat she devoured that day.
The next day Claudais returned to the brick of butter and slid her knife into it. The metal knife in her hand met some resistance. She initially thought the hard object obstructing her butter knife might be a toast crust.
But upon closer inspection Claudais discovered that the object in the butter was a mouse paw. And what's worse than finding a worm in your apple? Half a worm. Well that's exactly what Claudais wondered - had she accidentally consumed part of a dead mouse?
Claudais reported that her body convulsed with violent cramps and she vomited repeatedly in the hours following the horrific discovery. Her psychologist told her that she had suffered a psychological episode that could have had permanent consequences.
Claudais kept copious notes on her plight and reported that she had developed a long-term revulsion to butter and all dairy products and was forced to cut everything into tiny squares before eating it.
Claudais hired a lawyer and sued the Ferme Saint Laurent, which has been a staple prodiving dairy products around Montreal for many decades.
It took two and a half years to get her cause into the Superior Court where she and her lawyer Gerard Archambault articulated her horrifying experience in October 1975.
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| Claudais, more recently |
The Ferme Saint Laurent insisted that its premises were spotless and Sales Manager P.E. Chevalier reported that they only distributed the butter, which was made by the Cremere Sainte Julie.
Judge Perry Mayer listened to several hours of testimony about the mouse paw and the butter and finally ordered the Ferme Saint Laurent to pay Claudais $2,300 and $200 to her husband, who was not named in published reports. That amounts to roughly $12,000 in today's moneys.
Claudais went on to write a novel in 1983 at the age of 44. It was a hit, so she wrote six more. In 1988 she sued another writer for plagiarizing her work and won that case four years later.
She hasn't written a book since 1997 and is now 83 years old so we're guessing that she's done with writing and butter as well.