McDonald’s Settle Halal Lawsuit for $700,000

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