Ronald Ball, who is described in the civil lawsuit filed in Madison County Circuit Court as an employee of Marathon Oil in Wood River, said he bought a can of Mountain Dew from a vending machine at his workplace. "After purchasing said can of Mountain Dew, plaintiff opened the can and immediately became violently ill, such that he began to vomit," the suit claims. The suit claims he poured the soda into a Styrofoam cup, "wherein the mouse was found." Ball also is claiming that when he called a telephone number on the can of soda to complain about the incident, they sent an adjuster to retrieve the mouse, but the company would not return the mouse until it had decomposed, ruling out additional testing by the plaintiff.
– An Illinois man is suing PepsiCo after allegedly finding a mouse in his Mountain Dew, and the details just keep getting weirder. In 2009, the man says, he got sick after drinking a can of the soda. After he complained to Pepsi, it sent someone to collect the mouse, and reportedly wouldn't give it back until it had decomposed—thereby apparently preventing the man from using it for "additional testing," as the Alton Telegraph put it back then. But it gets crazier: Pepsi recently called for a dismissal of the case, notes the Madison St. Clair Record. The company pointed to expert testimony that a mouse in a soda would turn into a "jelly-like" material before the soda reached the customer. In other words, Gizmodo notes, Pepsi is essentially saying that "you'd never know if there was a mouse in your soda." Well, that's a relief.