What a dummkopf!
A German tourist tried to squeeze a Times Square taco spot for $100,000 — claiming his northern European tongue suffered “nonstop pain” from dangerously spicy salsa — but a judge said “nein” to his lawsuit.
Faycal Manz, a self-described spice-intolerant traveler from Schemmerhofen, Germany, claimed he suffered “diarrhea, nausea” and “mouth/tongue blisters which cause nonstop pain” after loading up three tacos at the Los Tacos No. 1 in August 2024, according to his lawsuit.
“As there is no possibility for me to eat tacos in my small german hometown, I was looking for a good Taco restaurant in NYC,” he wrote in his self-filed lawsuit in Manhattan federal court.
But the self-described “too special” experience turned too spicy, Manz wrote, calling the Mexican salsa “dangerous,” compared to his Germanic diet devoid of spice.
“For someone like me living in Germany and eating nothing spicy, it was a very big shock physically and mentally,” he wrote.
Despite admitting he never asked staff about the heat — or even bothered to sniff the sauce before dousing his dinner — Manz argued that the restaurant failed to warn him of every possible harm to him, including that Mexican salsa might actually be hot.
But Manhattan federal court Judge Dale Ho wasn’t biting.
Manz’s aversion to spice and flavor is his own burden to manage, not society’s at large, the judge wrote.
“When it comes to salsa, the spice is often the point,” Ho said.
Manz, Ho added, neither asked workers about the spice level nor tested it before piling it on his tacos.
“A quick google search for ‘Mexican food,’ ‘salsa,’ or even Los Tacos reviews likely would have revealed that salsa can be quite spicy,” Ho wrote.
The judge concluded that while Manz’s pulse may have spiked while he expanded his palette, his legal standing was flatlining — especially since the “dangerous” green salsa was actually labeled “medium” in online photos, while the red sauce he allegedly consumed without complaint was marked “spicy.”
And the German tourist’s evidence for the “dangerously spicy” sauce was “entirely lacking,” Ho said.
“The only evidence he puts forward in his personal testimony regarding injuries suffered from consuming the salsa,” he wrote, adding that Manz never found anyone else who complained of the spice nor found any expert evidence to support his “dangerously spicy” claim.
Gothamist, who first reported on the lawsuit, decided to sacrifice their own tongues for a impromptu taste test, and found that “the salsa just wasn’t that spicy.”
After Manz tried to “wash down the spice with a coke and later some ice cream to no avail,” he apparently “continued with his trip as planned, attended the U.S. Open, and ate meals as normal without issue for the remainder of the trip,” Ho’s decision read.
Despite his spice-avoidance, Manz appears to have taken well to another aspect of American culture: pro-se litigation.
In addition to his taco lawsuit, Manz filed two others during his short trip: one against Walmart over its Wi-Fi access, and another admonishing the NYPD for not accepting his international phone number after he reported a crime.