Faycal Manz arrived in New York City ready for fun. A tourist from Schemmerhofen, a town in southern Germany, he booked a hotel room in Times Square, a neighborhood that appeals to many fun-seeking tourists. And he planned to visit the U.S. Open, an event that pretty much everyone enjoys.
But the trip, by any measure, was a fiasco.
The harms Mr. Manz experienced during his short stay in August 2024 were numerous and varied, he would later write. He became nauseated and developed diarrhea and blisters on his tongue after taking a single bite of a taco. And he was ignored and discriminated against as a German, causing him such emotional trauma that he sought the care of a psychotherapist. When he returned to Germany, Mr. Manz filed three lawsuits — including two in federal court — related to his six-day trip.
The defendants included the New York Police Department, Walmart and a chain of taco restaurants. Mr. Manz demanded $20.1 million in damages.
All the defendants described Mr. Manz’s claims as unfounded, and asked for the lawsuits to be dismissed. The judges agreed. Responding to one suit, in which Mr. Manz sued Walmart for discrimination because he was unable to connect his German cellphone to a store’s Wi-Fi network, a federal judge ruled that Mr. Manz “could have obtained a U.S. mobile number to access Walmart’s Wi-Fi services at any time.”
Mr. Manz, an engineer and a part-time law student, filed all three suits without legal representation. He did not respond to an email seeking comment. His lawsuits were first reported by Gothamist.
Schemmerhofen is a hilly town of about 8,800 people 60 miles southeast of Stuttgart. Locals seeking international flavor in Schemmerhofen might try Canucks Braukunst, a Canadian-themed brewery known for its pulled-pork hamburgers, according to a food review website.
When Mr. Manz arrived in New York in 2024, he was excited to try something new. He walked into the Times Square outpost of Los Tacos No. 1 on 43rd Street and ordered three tacos.
“Because this taco experience was too special for me, I made several pictures and videos of the received food,” he would later write.
He poured salsa onto the tacos, and began to eat. This did not go well.
“My tongue and mouth were burning immediately,” Mr. Manz wrote, and “my Apple Watch registered at this time a higher pulse.”
His symptoms worsened to include gastrointestinal and emotional distress, he said. In a lawsuit he later filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, Mr. Manz described the restaurant’s liability as a “failure to warn” customers of its hot salsa. He sought relief in the form of $100,000.
Los Tacos No. 1, which operates 10 restaurants in Manhattan, did not respond to a request for comment. In court documents, the company said that any discomfort Mr. Manz experienced was caused by his “own culpable conduct, carelessness, recklessness and negligence.”
Judge Dale E. Ho ruled against Mr. Manz, finding that he had “failed to state a claim that Los Tacos negligently served excessively spicy salsa.”
After the taco debacle, Mr. Manz spent four days in the United States without known incident. Then, at 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 29, he tried to use his phone inside the Walmart Supercenter in Secaucus, N.J.
He failed. This was a bummer of extreme proportions.
“The incident caused a big emotional negative impact,” Mr. Manz later wrote in his lawsuit, causing flashbacks to acts of discrimination he had suffered in school and at work, he wrote.
Mr. Manz sued Walmart for $10 million. Responding to a request for comment, a spokeswoman referred to Walmart’s Wi-Fi policy, which states that the company is not responsible for service interruptions.
Walmart filed a motion to dismiss the suit, and a federal judge in New Jersey agreed, arguing in part that a person with a German phone is not a member of a protected class under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Hours after the Wi-Fi imbroglio, Mr. Manz found himself in further distress. At 8 p.m., he later said, he saw two men assaulting a homeless person near Times Square. Mr. Manz called 911 and described his location, he said, but the dispatcher required a street address, which Mr. Manz had trouble finding. Police officers eventually arrived, Mr. Manz said, but they refused to take his statement or investigate because the assailants had fled.
The officers’ disregard gave him “insomnia and intrusive flashbacks,” Mr. Manz would write, and his doctor “diagnosed him with psychosomatic and post-traumatic symptoms.”
Again, he sought $10 million in damages. Again the defendant said that the only person responsible for Mr. Manz’s suffering was Mr. Manz. He “knew or should have known in the exercise of due/reasonable care of the risks and dangers” involved, the Police Department said in a court response. This week, Mr. Manz dropped his lawsuit.
Despite the litigious fruits of his time in America, Mr. Manz said in the suits that he really did try to have fun here. Unfortunately, his painful salsa experience caused a loss “of enjoyment during my very short trip.”
Christopher Maag is a reporter covering the New York City region for The Times.
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