McDonald's settles suit over Islamic diet

[snopes]

McDonald's and one of its franchise owners agreed to pay $700,000 to members of the Muslim community to settle allegations a Detroit-area restaurant falsely advertised its food as being prepared according to Islamic dietary law.

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/art...et-4211508.php

[Lainie]

"McDonald's from the very beginning stepped up and took this case very seriously," Daklallah said. "They made it clear they wanted to resolve this. They got ahead of the problem."

Good for them, ethically and from a business POV.

[snopes]

It was a good move from a business and public relations standpoint. I don't know how much of it, if any, was about ethics.

[Lainie]

I've never accepted that doing the right thing for the wrong reason is the greatest treason (although it makes for good poetry).

[snopes]

I wouldn't say that doing the right thing for the wrong reason constitutes any form of "treason," but it certainly leaves open the possibility that, absent the wrong reason, nothing would have been done at all.

[Lainie]

I agree. and characters

[TurquoiseGirl]

Read the article before commenting TGirl.

[Esprise Me]

In any case, this is an improvement from their public relations standards a while back, when they lied about their fries being vegetarian.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by TurquoiseGirl

I think it might also be a litigation reason. False adverting, perhaps?

Yup. Risk mitigation is part of good business.

[UrbanLegends101]

From the article:


He said although Ahmed believes McDonald's was negligent, there was no evidence that the chain set out to deceive customers.

An interesting claim.

Buying non-Halal meat and serving it in a location claiming all meat served is Halal seems to be deceptive by nature.

[Lainie]

I took that to mean that any actual deception was on the part of the franchisees, not the corporation.

[Mickey Blue]

Yeah, the idea I think is that the local store violated policy, rather then the corporation itself was ok with deceiving customers.

[UrbanLegends101]

OK, but it certainly wasn't that clear whether he was talking about McDonald's corporate or McDonald's franchisee.

[Lainie]

The franchisee is the other defendant, Finley's Management Co. The only McDonald's referenced in the OP article is the corporation. It seems clear enough to me:

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — McDonald's and one of its franchise owners agreed to pay $700,000 to members of the Muslim community to settle allegations a Detroit-area restaurant falsely advertised its food as being prepared according to Islamic dietary law.

McDonald's and Finley's Management Co. agreed Friday to the tentative settlement, with that money to be shared by Dearborn Heights resident Ahmed Ahmed, a Detroit health clinic, the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn and lawyers.

ETA: Also, the bit you quoted in your post referred to McDonald's as "the chain," and the article made it clear that only one restaurant was involved.

[UrbanLegends101]

OK, I stand corrected. 50 Lashes with a wet noodle.

[diddy]

Originally Posted by Mickey Blue

Yeah, the idea I think is that the local store violated policy, rather then the corporation itself was ok with deceiving customers.

Yea, when they say "McDonalds" as a company, they are only referring to it as the parent company since they have a direct relationship to the party being sued (a franchise relationship). To be clear McDonalds corporation isn't involved at all other then they are making the franchisee pay up.

[hoitoider]

ConAgra Foods Inc has won the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by consumers claiming the company's Hebrew National hot dogs and other products are not kosher.

[U.S. District Judge Donovan] Frank said he was constrained by clear Supreme Court precedent barring civil judges from resolving faith-based disputes.

http://news.yahoo.com/suit-claiming-...--finance.html

I wonder what would've happened if the McDonald's claim had gone to trial.

[GenYus234]

I'm guessing the McDonald's case would have been settled much differently than the ConAgra one. In the ConAgra case, a kosher certifying agency said that their hot dogs were kosher but the plaintiff says (to my reading of it) that that agency was using the "wrong" rules to determine that. A cecular court isn't going to get into the decision of what it and is not "true" kosher. But in the McDonald's case, no agency was certifying the meat as halal. So selling it as halal was not a difference of which religious rules to follow, but not following any of them and claiming you were.