A Portland woman has filed a $10,000 lawsuit against Trader Joe’s in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleging she found the fingertip of a rubber glove inside a bottle of the chain’s organic orange juice and may have inadvertently swallowed part of a human finger along with it.
The complaint, filed Monday and first reported by OregonLive and KGW-TV, identifies the plaintiff as Julee O’Neil. She says she purchased a 52-ounce bottle of Trader Joe’s Organic Orange Juice from the chain’s location on Northeast Halsey Street in Portland’s Hollywood neighborhood sometime in June 2025.
What she found, and what she feared
About five days after buying the bottle, O’Neil was finishing the last of the juice when she noticed what felt like a large piece of pulp in her mouth. When she pulled it out, the lawsuit alleges she discovered it was the severed fingertip of a rubber glove.
What followed was far more unsettling than the discovery itself. O’Neil said she became concerned that the glove tip may have contained the end of an actual human finger, and that she may have unknowingly swallowed it over the course of drinking from the bottle across multiple days. The filing describes her as believing that a human hand may have been severed and that parts of it had been mixed into the pulp she consumed.
She experienced gagging, nausea and a burning sensation in her mouth and sought treatment at urgent care. The lawsuit does not detail the outcome of that visit.
The $10,000 demand Trader Joe’s ignored
Before filing suit, O’Neil sent Trader Joe’s a written demand for $10,000 to settle the matter. The company did not respond, and according to the complaint, failed, refused or neglected to pay. She is now seeking that same $10,000 figure in damages through the courts, along with attorney fees and other associated costs. Her legal team has requested a jury trial.
Trader Joe’s spokesperson Nakia Rohde did not immediately respond to a request for comment. O’Neil’s attorney, Anthony Furniss of Portland firm Furniss, Shearer and Leineweber, also did not reply to requests for comment.
O’Neil’s history in court
Court records in Multnomah County show O’Neil has filed multiple civil suits over the past decade. She settled two separate vehicle collision cases, one from 2016 and one from 2018, in which the other drivers were found to be at fault.
In 2020, she sued Starbucks after slipping on a puddle of water at a location on Northwest Glisan, injuring her right knee. That case was dismissed in April 2021 for want of prosecution after Starbucks appeared not to have received or responded to the complaint. No costs were awarded to either party.
In February 2024, O’Neil filed a complaint against a massage therapist practicing Ashiatsu massage, alleging he stepped improperly on her neck without consent and displaced several vertebrae. She requested nearly $124,000 in medical bills and lost wages, plus $710,000 in non-economic damages. She voluntarily dismissed that case in May 2025 without pursuing it further.
USA TODAY has reached out to both O’Neil’s attorney and Trader Joe’s for comment.
