Big whack at Byron
Weather Channel boss’ bias suit vs. McD’s tossed
A judge on Wednesday tossed Weather Channel owner Byron Allen’s $10 billion discrimination lawsuit against McDonald’s.
The media mogul accused the fast-food empire of racial discrimination for what he said was its deliberate decision not to advertise with black-owned media outlets, including his AMG Entertainment Studios and Weather Group.
US District Judge Fernando Olguin in Los Angeles wrote in his decision that he was “skeptical” about the facts in the case.
“In short,” he wrote, the complaint “fails to allege sufficient facts that would support an inference that defendants intentionally and purposefully discriminated against them.”
The comedian-turned-media mogul claimed in the lawsuit, filed in May in LA federal court, that McDonald’s gives less than $5 million of its roughly $1.6 billion annual television advertising budget to black-owned media despite the fact, the suit claimed, that black consumers represent some 40 percent of McDonald’s US sales.
On the same day Allen filed his complaint, McDonald’s announced an initiative to increase its marketing budget from 4 to 10 percent with businesses owned by black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific-American, women and LGBTQ-owned platforms.
McDonald’s is also facing a growing chorus of complaints and litigation from black franchisees who claim the world’s largest restaurant company deliberately steered them to open outlets in poor and unprofitable neighborhoods.
McDonald’s has denied those allegations.
McDonald’s lawyer Loretta Lync, said in a statement on the Allen suit: “This case is about revenue, not race, and was dismissed because plaintiffs have provided absolutely no factual basis for their claims.”
Allen has 10 days to file an appeal, according to the order. Louis “Skip” Miller, Allen’s attorney, said his team would amend the complaint against McDonald’s to add greater detail. “And when we do so, we firmly believe the case will go forward,” Miller, a partner at law firm Miller Barondess, said in a statement to The Post.
It’s not the first time Allen has sued over racial discrimination. Last year, his battle with Comcast over its refusal to air his cable channels went to the Supreme Court. Although he lost the case, the cable giant made concessions.