Is there ANY valid reason to crumble bay leaves into a soup?

I need some professional chef opinions about this.

There is a restaurant in a gas station I go to whenever I am fueling one of the trucks. They always have two pots, one of chili and one of soup, that you can dish out yourself for $5 each. They are always really, really good. I used to work there a few years ago and the soup is always fresh. There is a new chef there who is in his 70's and from what I hear used to own his own place before moving here.

Well, last week I took a bite of some seafood chowder, and when I swallow I get something huge and sharp stuck in my throat. I managed to hack it out, and there is half a crumbled bay leaf. I look through the soup, and there are 4 or 5 bay leaves worth of crumbles all over my soup. They are rock hard and inedible. I brough the soup to the chef, and he INSISTED that it is how you add bay leaves to soup.

I have been thinking back and wondering if I yelled at the chef over nothing. Yeah it could have killed me if I didn't have enough air in my lungs to hack it out, but surely an old chef knows more than me.

Is it normal to crumble hard bay leaves into soup?