Another stupid food lawsuit

Well, it looks like we can add another item to the growing list of Stupid Food Lawsuits. Namely, one filed against McDonald’s in Miami federal court back in 2018.

This lawsuit strongly resembles other Stupid Food Lawsuits, such as the one alleging that someone was Shocked! Shocked! to discover that Subway’s “footlong” sandwiches are not, in fact, always a foot long; or that Cap’n Crunch Crunchberries cereal does not, in fact, contain any “crunchberries” (probably because there is no thing as a “crunchberry”); or that Subway’s (Subway seems to get a lot of these) tuna fish sandwiches allegedly do not, in fact, contain any actual tuna.

Still, my favorite was a class action lawsuit against Taco Bell alleging that it used non-meat “extenders” in its beef tacos. Taco Bell fought back with an unusual weapon — humor. It posted large signs in all of its restaurants, and bought full-page ads in major newspapers, boldly proclaiming, “Thank you for suing us!” — claiming that this gave it a chance to prove that its beef tacos were too all beef! (And then when it won, it ran new ads, asking the lawyers who sued them, “Would it kill you to say you’re sorry?”)

But about McDonald’s. Two folks who claimed that they regularly ate at McDonald’s and regularly bought McDonald’s Quarter Pounder and Double Quarter Pounder hamburgers were miffed that most McDonald’s restaurants only had “Quarter Pounders with Cheese” listed on the menus. This meant that if you didn’t want cheese on your “Quarter Pounder,” you’d have to ask for a Quarter Pounder and say, “Hold the Cheese.”

McDonald’s mistake (if it made one) was that at one time it listed both the “Quarter Pounder” and the “Quarter Pounder with Cheese” as separate items. And darned if it didn’t usually charge a bit less for the one without cheese. Then presumably for simplicity (or to save space on its menu) it started to charge a flat price for Quarter Pounders, with or without cheese. This gave the plaintiffs the opening to allege that this was really skullduggery on McDonald’s part — charging the same thing, even if you didn’t want cheese!

The lawsuit claimed that this was an “illegal tying arrangement” (don’t ask) under federal antitrust law. Therefore, McDonald’s owed $5 million to all of the folks whom it was illegally charging for cheese even if they didn’t want it.

Clearly, this lawsuit was not filed in Wisconsin, where the state motto is “Eat Cheese or Die.”

Anyway, McDonald’s wasted no time asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit. And within a few months, the court agreed. The lawsuit was filed in May, 2018, and dismissed for good in November.

The judge explained that the plaintiffs claimed that they were being charged for cheese even though they didn’t want it and so, as in his words, they brought the lawsuit “based upon this unwanted cheese vexation.” Well, yes — that’s one way to put it.

For its part, McDonald’s lawyers argued that a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would create “utter chaos.” Of course, that sounds a little like hyperbole (and maybe it was).

But if McDonald’s lost, then it (and every other restaurant) would be forced to offer specific discounts for everything that came standard on an item that the customer didn’t want. You don’t want pickles? You don’t want onions? Pretty soon the McDonald’s menu would look like it was from Spirit Airlines: a basic charge for a bun and a hamburger patty, and then a list of how much extra every other item on the hamburger cost.

The judge agreed. He noted that there was no “separate product market for a customer to order a slice of tomato, or a slice of lettuce, or a slice of pickle, etc.” And that’s true: few (if any) folks walk into McDonald’s and say, “Yes, I’d like a slice of tomato. All by itself.” Or, for that matter, “a slice of cheese.” The judge ordered the case dismissed.

There’s an old joke that Jean-Paul Sartre goes into a restaurant and asks for coffee with no cream. The waitress returns and informs him, “I’m sorry Monsieur Sartre — we are out of cream. Would you prefer it with no milk?”

The folks who brought the Florida lawsuit probably wouldn’t have laughed at that one, either.