The 7 Most Bizarre Fast Food Industry Lawsuits
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#3.
McDonald's and the Case of the Mean Italian Critic
In 2002, Italian food critic Edoardo Raspelli went on a foul-mouthed tirade against McDonald's, going as far as to say that the ambiance at McDonald's was "mechanical" and that the bread was "poor." Vulgarities such as that could only come from a man who sits at the right hand of Satan, his ink well fed by the blood of innocents and the semen of Hitler. McDonald's, probably after some intensive rounds of therapy and some veterinary-grade tranquilizers to calm themselves, did the only responsible thing they could in the face of this irresponsible attack: they filed a $25 million lawsuit for defamation.
The Result: The judge in the case suggested the two parties work it out on their own, apparently out of a baffling desire to not preside over a case where he and the jury are forced to try multiple delicious McDonald's sandwiches to prove they didn't taste "like cardboard" (as Raspelli also said). Little progress has been reported in the suit since, but Raspelli wound up with a massive amount of free publicity since the suit became huge news in the Italian press. Of course during all of the coverage, his harsh criticisms were repeated over and over again for millions of readers and listeners. Somewhere there are probably some McDonalds executives wishing they had just had the man quietly killed. #2.
Kentucky Fried Horror Show
KFC only has so many words associated with their brand. Kentucky. Fried. Chicken. It's not entirely practical to sue a state, a method of cooking and a bird every time they pop up in the media, but if two of those things appear together, possibly with a bucket near by, you better believe KFC is taking someone to court. The makers of the Kentucky Fried Horror Show found that out when KFC sent them a letter calling their movie "alarming, ghastly, disturbing, revolting and vile" which is impressive since it hadn't been filmed yet and KFC had no way to get a script. However, they did see the promotional art, featuring a head in a red and white striped bucket. The Colonel wasn't going to stand for that kind of chicanery. He stands for the mass slaughter of chickens, not people.
The Result: Indie filmmakers are known to put movies together on a budget of change found under couch cushions, filmed after they get back from their own jobs at KFC. What they are not known for is fighting major corporations in court. Thus, the Kentucky Fried Horror Show became the Kentucky Horror Show and the red and white stripes were removed from the promotional artwork, thus making this movie about people in the south dismembered and possibly eaten by the Devil safe for families once again. #1.
The Right to Bear Boobs
Hooters, in a move that had to make more than one legal expert crack some hilarious jokes about "handling evidence" filed suit in 2003 against Kerfs WingHouse Bar & Grill. Hooters sued for $4 million in lost profit because the Winghouse stole some valued trade secrets, such as having waitresses in shorts and tight t-shirts, something Hooters went back in time to invent in the Middle Ages or whenever it was that a bar owner first noticed dudes will pay for more food, beer or bags or horse shit if a woman in a tight shirt is selling it. The Winghouse, which has 10 locations, was apparently confusing poor, boob-hungry patrons who were just wandering the streets aimlessly in the hopes of finding chicken wings and a glimpse of cotton-clad nipple under an A/C duct. Hooters just couldn't stand for it. Winghouse filed a counterclaim accusing Hooters of trying to use the legal system to crush the competition.
The Result: The judge in the case gave the jury a directed order to basically find in favor of the Winghouse, which they did. The argument from the Winghouse was that they can't be stealing a trademark from Hooters because the clothes are functional and functional clothes can't be protected that way. In case you're wondering, the function has something to do with boners. Hooters tried to appeal the decision and lost once again, proving the legal system will not stand for anyone trying to hold an illegal monopoly on reducing their wait staff to boobies that can serve drinks. Honorable Mention: McJob
In 2001, Merriam-Webster added "McJob" to their dictionary, defining it as "a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement." The CEO of McDonald's rattled off a bitchy letter, oblivious to the fact people had been using McJob to mean exactly what the dictionary said it meant for well over a decade. When simply whining like children didn't work, it was later stated in a veiled, sad threat that McJOBS is trademarked and is the name of the program McDonald's uses to train mentally and physically disabled employees. So they were apparently preparing a claim that the dictionary violated the trademark by including the term, demonstrating McDonalds' complete lack of understanding of what a dictionary is. The Result: For once, the McDonald's legal team showed some restraint and the lawsuit at the heart of their veiled threats never came to pass. Instead, McDonald's has gone on a publicity campaign to try to convince the whole world to stop acting like jobs at McDonald's aren't awesome. They've also started a petition again the Oxford-English Dictionary, hoping to convince it to remove McJob and its similar definition ("an unstimulating low-paid job with few prospects"). McDonald's claims that definition is false and has evidence that 90 percent of its employees believe they receive valuable training that will be of benefit for the future, not mentioning how many of them believe that because they have resigned themselves to working at McDonald's for the rest of their lives.
For more bizarre lawsuits, read about The 9 Insane Cases That Prove the Legal System is Screwed or find out why all the cool kids want the Dark Knight action figures. |
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Funny thing about Angus Beef.
An Angus is a type of cow, specifically bread for meat, in the way that a Holstein is a cow specifically bread for milk. As a general rule, only cows bread for meat (like Angus) find their way into the human food chain (the exception being veal which is exclusivly made from dairy cows).
Anyway, Certified Angus beef could very easily include the sphincter muscles of an Angus cow, and with regard to ground meats most likely does.
Angus certification is generally a meaningless certification with regard to meat, however it does allow meat marketers to charge idiots a few extra bucks utilizing the Chivas Regal effect, so I guess it does serve a purpose.
What i find so insane is that even tho Mcdonalds has become the tobacco company of fast food is how every single person against Mcdonalds still eats Mcdonalds. Well at least 99 percent do!
Haha Hooters in Greensboro NC I lived in Greensboro for the longest time. That's funny.
And dont forget when someon tried to sue bk because she couldnt have the food her way witch was free. And now if you see the trademark in tiny letters by HAVE IT YOUR WAY it says exept for free
Hey some chick once tried suing mccyD's cuz she fell in the bathroom and busted her head....then come to find out she slipped in her own pee...you could imagine her own shock 0.0
"beliefunwroughtLet's not forget the New Mexican woman who cut off the finger of her dead Aunt and planted it in her Wendy's chili hoping to get a whopping settlement. What she got instead: jail time."
Get your facts straight.....It was a Las Vegas woman, and it was her husband's co-worker's finger that was placed in the chilli...
hmmm in st louis we have hooters, show me's, and hot shots... and johnnys in soulard... man i could really go for some wings right now.....!
MacHaggis: You're wrong. It's that simple. McD's misinformation is strong so don't just google, read the actual case and get the facts. I was once like you.
@Atanamis, Additionally, she was in a fully stopped car, so there was no jostling via road bumps or traffic maneuvers. Also, she was the one who removed the lid that had been firmly placed by the restaurant personnel. She chose to hold the piping hot coffee between her legs willfully, then willfully removed the lid whilst the cup was betwixt her legs, rather than, say, in a cup holder. It's funny how folks never let facts get in the way of a good rant about corporations. Thanks for adding that info so the more sensationally inclined could get a few facts straight.
Oh, but I should also say this was quite well done.
The dumbest McLawsuit to me was when they tried to sue the Scottish clan McDonald.
There's a documentary about the McLibel people. I've never watched it but... it exists.
"Robble Gobble" Brilliant!!
"So when an American comes across a severed finger, their first thought is "who can I sue?"."
Actually, my first thought would be, "HOLY s**t!!!!". Then I would proceed to vomit all over the floor and pass out from horror.
And the finger-in-the-chilli lady wasn't a normal customer: she put that finger in there herself. She was a special kind of crazy.
http://www.vanosteen.com/mcdonalds-coffee-lawsuit.htm
Machine was not malfunctining: "Before trial, McDonald's gave the opposing lawyer its operations and training manual, which says its coffee must be brewed at 195 to 205 degrees and held at 180 to 190 degrees for optimal taste."
Experts agree this is a reasonable temperature: 'Coffee connoisseur William McAlpin, an importer and wholesaler in Bar Harbor, Maine, who owns a coffee plantation in Costa Rica, says 175 degrees is "probably the optimum temperature, because that's when aromatics are being released. Once the aromas get in your palate, that is a large part of what makes the coffee a pleasure to drink."'
The injuries were severe, in large part because the coffee was held close to the skin by the ladies pants: 'At that point, Mr. Goens and the other jurors knew only the basic facts: that two years earlier, Stella Liebeck had bought a 49-cent cup of coffee at the drive-in window of an Albuquerque McDonald's, and while removing the lid to add cream and sugar had spilled it, causing third-degree burns of the groin, inner thighs and buttocks. Her suit, filed in state court in Albuquerque, claimed the coffee was "defective" because it was so hot.
What the jury didn't realize initially was the severity of her burns. Told during the trial of Mrs. Liebeck's seven days in the hospital and her skin grafts, and shown gruesome photographs, jurors began taking the matter more seriously.'
This summarizes most of the facts about the case. McDonald's deliberately served coffee at what it believed to be a reasonable temperature, and someone who was careless with it in their car was seriously burned. Perhaps a stronger cup should have been used, but the coffee was definitely not "unreasonably hot" compared to coffee industry standards. (Most other fast food establishments deliberately serve sub-par coffee, but that is a cost saving measure rather than a safety measure. Any high end coffee shop will sell you coffee at temperatures close to what McDonald's did.)
Hey, she's wearing a Greensboro, NC Hooters shirt! I was totally there just a few months ago
Food is good. Boobs.
Actually, KFC is starting to use the spelled out version of their name again. They were just trying to cash in on the popular craze of everyone abbreviating things because of the IM/email/txt/sms explosion.
"Deserved some recompense?" For incomparable idiocy? Newsflash: coffee is hot. If it wasn't, then it would be....well, cold coffee. To ding McDonald's for this is like suing Smith& Wesson when your unemployed brother-in-law blows his head off.
The product did its job: put a hole in the target. Similarly, the coffee did its intended job as well: it sure as hell woke her up rightnow.
"...deserved some recompense...". Jesus, take $10 outta Mom's purse and go buy a clue.
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how did you manage to write such a coherent and informative comment without knowing that it's not spelled "bread"?