A judge has approved a $700,000 settlement in the lawsuit by Muslims against McDonalds for serving chicken that was viewed as violating the dietary standards of Halal. The class action was based on a case of Ahmed Ahmed, the Dearborn Heights man, who said that he bought a chicken sandwich that was not prepared according to Muslim standards.
Under Halal standards, God’s name must be invoked before an animal providing meat for consumption is slaughtered.
Ahmed will get some of the money and the rest will go a Detroit health clinic and the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn as well as the lawyers.
Local activists have opposed the settlement was going to organizations that do not directly benefit their community.
The settlement concerns one of the only two McDonalds to serve halal products. Once you hold out that you will meet such religious dietary standards, it becomes more of false advertising. Most of these cases occur with simple negligence like the Taco Bell case that led to a settlement with a Hindu man who was mistakenly given a beef burrito in violation of his faith. The man involved in that case said that the mistake required him to purify himself by bathing in the holy waters of the Ganges River.
Source: CBS
The McDonalds up the street here is open on Sunday. The Lard’s day. Boycott. Then they are open on Monday, Krisco day. Boycott. They serve french fries with ketchup. They should be served with mayonise as in France. Boycott. The pickles stink like they were in pee water. Boycott. They dont sell beer. Boycott. Some clown has his photo up on the wall. Boycott.
Bron,
Yeah, I was just thinking that number didn’t seem right. Thanks.
Gyges:
not to be nit picky but its 140,000 meals at $5 per meal not 80,000.
I agree with you on the general concept though.
“Nevertheless – what he ingested was identical to what he thought he was getting. The 700k was all about his delicate religious sensibilities.”
So: you admit that the food wasn’t Halal, you admit that McDonalads said it was selling Halal food? Now, it stands to reason that if there’s A and “not-A” there must be a difference between A and not-A. So if you admit that McDonalds was selling, haraam food (that is food that isn’t Halal), you admit that there must be a difference. Oh and by the way, the story mentions the blessing part, but there is also a specific way that the animal is supposed to be slaughtered as well.
Oh and it’s a class action suit the $700,000 isn’t for the one guy buying one meal, it’s for thousands of people buying thousands of meals. I mean, heck at $5 a shot that’s only 80,000 meals they’d needed to have served. And that’s assuming that they bought 1 chicken sandwich and left. Plus factoring in lawyers fees, for 19 months. That’s going to take a huge chunk out.
But hey, I guess it’s fun to laugh at religious people and their wanting companies to not commit fraud.
@ Gingerbaker
“The right to believe stupid and contradictory things about invisible sky men is protected, but does it need to be respected more than rational endeavors?”
Ah, I figured with that tone and the colorful language, and the discrimination and intolerance toward religion, that we would see one of those idiotic atheist straw man “invisible sky man” logical fallacies thrown out there. What happened to your pink unicorns? Pasta monster? How about Santa Claus?
(Oh yeah, I figured you guys aren’t using Santa Claus much any more because of the publicity of the theory “Santa Syndrome” where Santa Claus is linked to causing atheism.)
Seriously though, this guy should maybe eat at home and prepare his own meals if something like this could happen.
Nevertheless – what he ingested was identical to what he thought he was getting. The 700k was all about his delicate religious sensibilities.
Some drunk can smash your favorite car, ruin your ability to go on vacation, perhaps you will miss the experience of a lifetime, perhaps never meet your future wife.. You are entitled to be compensated for the depreciated cost of your car.
Or, you can eat a sandwich absolutely identical to the sandwich you would have received if an Imam blessed it in the name of a non existent sky fairy, and you are “entitled” to three quarters of a million dollars because religion religion religion (how dare you discredit) my religious sensibilities.
=> If this case was truly about misrepresentation, he would have been awarded the cost of a replacement sandwich.
So some worker at a slaughter housewas supposed to say magical words to this supposed deity in the sky before killing the chicken? Yes, religion is definately something that should be respected, completely, nothing nutty about religious beliefs.
Mike:
You are right about that WRT McDucks. When traveling, as I am now, I like to sample the local stuff. We stopped by a mom and pop restaurant and I had their house special burger. The burger was great and it cost the same as eating at McDucks. Why on Earth do people still eat at corporate burger? Bunch of lemmings methinks. Presently, I am in a state where I have never been prior to this trip. A nice place, but I am really getting tired of wherever I go in the US, and I have only 6 states left to visit, it is nearly always McDucks, walmart, and Motel-666, infestations everywhere. Why even travel when it is the same thing in my hometown as it is in Pahrump, NV as it is in Wasco County, OR, or anywhere. It is becoming so homogenous that it is only nature that differs by location.
Darren,
That has been my experience on the many road trips I’ve taken. I started in the late 60’s and there was much more individualization between places, which is what makes them so interesting. As the years went on that became less and less true as even small towns became saturated by chains. I must admit that when my girls were young and we were limited in funds, we used some of the fast food chains since they were affordable for a family of four. We always taught our children the distinction between that food and real food. Both of them are grown and they both are careful of what they eat. These days when my wife and I go on the road we use the I phone to check out local restaurants along the way and eschew fast food. It is surprising how many good, local places still exist, but they are being squeezed mightily by the fast food chains. As far as Walmart goes I refuse to patronize them. My choice of corporate shopping is limited to those stores that don’t mistreat their employees.
The whole thing looks like a neat set up to me. Person or persons knew and could incontrovertibly attest to the fact that the chicken was not being prepared in the correct manner so a purchase or purchases were arranged and then a law suit was launched with all the ducks nicely in a row. So do not engage in false and misleading advertising.
As usual the lawyers won and that is what it is really about. The plaintiff’s law firm will no doubt get 35% or more of the settlement and the rest will be distributed to the multiple plaintiffs who signed up to this money making venture.
If I’m serving chicken, don’t ask me to Halal it unless you prove your god exists, or better yet, let this god face me itself with its bizarre pre-slaughter requests.
That’s great. Then don’t claim to serve Halal compliant chicken. See how easy it is? You don’t have to respect religion, you just have to not commit fraud, and you won’t get sued.
kewl, i wanna sue over the mc rib, for violating the dietary standards of humans.
after the jury sees how they’re made i should be able to pull in a couple of mill.
Nice of them to give up two whole hours of their profits to show how much they care about their customers.
First, there is a difference between puffery and affirmative misrepresentations of fact. Second, this was a class action suit. Depending upon the number of potential claimants in the class, $700,000.00 may not be significant. Looking at raw numbers is seldom helpful in evaluating settlements.
I would like to know why this misrepresentation warranted 700K, whereas it’s misrepresentation as usual in so many other circumstances, as Gingerbaker alluded. My frozen meals never look the same way in real life as they appear in the photos, and I am highly offended. The exaggerated claims of beauty products rarely live up to their exaggerations and sometimes blatant lies. Etc., etc. It’s offensive to me that once again it appears that religion is treated with more deference than other complaints that are actually grounded in reality. If I’m serving chicken, don’t ask me to Halal it unless you prove your god exists, or better yet, let this god face me itself with its bizarre pre-slaughter requests.
This McDonald’s committed fraud with false advertising, end of story. Interesting comment on America though that so many hear feel compassion for McDonald’s, bation of unhealthy food. Perhaps the corprate feudal state is slresdy here, loyal serfs and all.
I agree it is a false advertisement type of issue more than anything else. If the restaurant goes down that road to declare it Halal or Kosher and set that expectation by the consumer, they had better back up that claim.
Even though what he ingested was EXACTLY the same as what he wanted to eat in the first place?.
No, no it wasn’t. He wanted to eat a chicken sandwich that didn’t violate his religious sensibilities. If he had known he was going to not get that, he probably would have eaten somewhere else.
When somebody explicitly tells you something that’s not true to get you to buy something, that’s called fraud. You can generally sue them over it.
If we start letting businesses lie because it just offends some wacky guy’s religion, who gets to decide what’s wacky and not worth enforcing?