A California couple is suing Starbucks, claiming their toddler drank a beverage that contained a barista's blood.

According to news reports, after the Vice family visited a Starbucks in San Bernardino, California, they noticed a red streak on the side of one of the cups. Upon further investigation, they detected a "strong metallic smell" coming from the cup that their young daughter had been drinking from.

"Once we drank it, then we could see on the inside of the rim that there was blood," Amanda Vice said, adding that her daughter was licking the lid, and eating whipped cream from the cup.

After reporting the incident to the store, it was discovered that an employee had been bleeding and was removed from the floor.

"My wife and my baby just drank someone’s blood," Louis Vice said. "It was bad."

The family requested to have the employee undergo a blood test to determine if he/she was HIV positive or if the employee had any other communicable diseases. Although the manager agreed to the testing, the employee could not be "forced" to get the blood test. Ultimately, the family underwent testing, with the blood tests reportedly coming back negative. A second round of tests was repeated.

"This caused the family stress, nervousness, fright, anguish, grief, anxiety, worry and shock for several months while awaiting the second round of test results,” officials said in the news release.

Starbucks initially offered the family free drinks for a week, followed by $1,000 to each family member. Stan Pekler, the family's attorney, said that "does not begin to compensate the family for the suffered injuries and damages for which Starbucks is liable."

"They endured additional distress because Starbucks seemed to not care about their well-being and refused to direct the employee to undergo a blood test to ensure the family's safety," Pekler said.

The lawsuit against Starbucks Coffee Company seeks damages because of a failure to warn the family, negligence, breach of express warranty, breach of implied warranty, fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress, battery, assault, negligent hiring, and negligent training and supervision.

—Source: kptv.com