A federal court in New York has entered an order approving the pre-trial discovery and motions scheduling order agreed to by the individual plaintiffs remaining in the litigation alleging that fast-food marketing caused adverse health effects related to obesity. Pelman v. McDonald’s Corp., No. 02-7821 (S.D.N.Y., order filed December 15, 2010). Under the terms of the agreement, fact discovery will close November 30, 2011; expert discovery will close April 30, 2012; and briefing on motions for summary judgment will end August 30, 2012. The court denied the plaintiff’s motion for class certification in October; additional details about the ruling appear in Issue 370 of this Update.
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The Guardian has published an exclusive exposé claiming that fast-food companies and other industry interests helped write U.K. health policy at the behest of the secretary of state for health. According to the November 12, 2010, article, “In an overhaul of public health, said by campaign groups to be the equivalent of handing smoking policy over to the tobacco industry, health secretary Andrew Lansley has set up five ‘responsibility deal’ networks with business, co-chaired by ministers, to come up with policies.” The newspaper has anticipated that these policies will feature in “the public health white paper due in the next month.” Although it acknowledges the involvement of consumer groups such as Which?, Cancer Research UK and the Faculty of Public Health, the article alleges that these responsibility deal networks are “dominated by food and alcohol industry members,” including trade associations, food manufacturers, beverage companies, and fast-food restaurants. Lansley has also reportedly…
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity has issued a November 2010 report claiming that “children as young as age 2 are seeing more fast food ads than ever before.” Titled Fast Food F.A.C.T.S.: Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score, the report purportedly evaluated “the marketing efforts of 12 of the nation’s largest fast food chains, and examined the calories, fat, sugar and sodium in more than 3,000 kids’ meal combinations and 2,781 menu items.” According to a concurrent press release, researchers relied on syndicated data from The Nielsen Company, comScore, Inc., and Arbitron Inc. to determine “that the fast food industry spent more than $4.2 billion on marketing and advertising in 2009, focusing extensively on television, the Internet, social media sites and mobile applications.” Among its key findings, the study claims that (i) “Unhealthy foods and beverages still dominate restaurant menus”; (ii) “The restaurant environment does not…
The California Supreme Court has denied a petition for review filed by fast food restaurants seeking to overturn an intermediate appellate court ruling allowing further proceedings on claims that they violated Proposition 65 by selling grilled chicken products to consumers without appropriate warnings about carcinogens created by the cooking process. Physicians Comm. for Responsible Med. v. McDonald’s Corp., No. S186566 (Cal., decided October 27, 2010). The intermediate appellate court determined that federal law did not preempt the claims. Additional information about its ruling appears in Issue 360 of this Update.
Employees at 10 Minneapolis-based Jimmy John’s sandwich shops have reportedly voted against joining the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which has since alleged that the close election “was marred by misconduct.” According to The New York Times, “[U]nion supporters were predicting victory, noting that about 60 percent of the restaurants’ 200 workers had signed prounion cards asking the labor board to hold a unionization vote.” But when the National Labor Relations Board called the October 22, 2010, election, it reported that union backers fell short of a majority by three votes. With seven days to file objections, the Jimmy John’s Worker Union has charged MikLin Enterprise with 22 violations of the National Labor Relations Act, including bribery and intimidation. “We do not recognize these election results as legitimate and will continue to fight for our demands,” stated the group’s spokesperson in a press release. The vote was apparently IWW’s…
According to a news source, a Brazilian judge has ordered McDonald’s Corp. to pay one of its former franchise managers US$17,500 because he gained 65 pounds over the 12 years he worked for the company. He reportedly claimed that he was required to sample all of the restaurant’s foods everyday to ensure their quality, and he consumed the free lunches that were offered to company employees. The 32-year old man apparently convinced the court that he had to sample the food because McDonald’s hired people to make unannounced visits to its restaurants to guarantee that food, cleanliness and service standards were maintained. See Product Liability Law360, October 28, 2010.
Corporate Accountability International Deputy Director Leslie Samuelrich contends in a recent AlterNet article that fast food companies “spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year marketing a dangerous product to America’s children.” She claims the companies deny putting children at risk and, instead, blame parents for their children’s obesity problems. According to Samuelrich, nonprofits and government agencies that promote healthy eating habits are not engaged in a “fair fight” with the industry, noting for example that the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation spends $100 million annually to address childhood obesity, while “major food and beverage corporations spend at least $1.6 billion in the United States every year—16 times more—to convince kids to eat unhealthy food.” Corporate Accountability International, describing itself as a corporate watchdog, says that it has been “waging winning campaigns to challenge corporate abuse for more than 30 years.” It has conducted campaigns against the tobacco industry, publishing materials…
A number of Burger King Corp. franchisees in California have filed a complaint for declaratory relief in federal court, claiming that the company has no basis for demanding that they pay the cost of settlement or its attorney’s fees and costs in a recently settled disability discrimination lawsuit. Newport v. Burger King Corp., No. 10-4511 (N.D. Cal., filed October 5, 2010). They seek an order declaring that Burger King is not entitled to indemnification as well as attorney’s fees and costs. According to the complaint, Burger King has demanded indemnification for a settlement it reached over complaints that its restaurants were not accessible to the disabled. “If the Plaintiff franchisees do not pay BKC’s unfounded demand, BKC threatens to ‘terminate’ their franchise agreements, engage in self-help by withholding money owed to the franchisees, and/or otherwise retaliate against franchisees by preventing them from obtaining new restaurant opportunities or limiting to whom they…
Three elected San Francisco officials recently introduced legislation to amend the city’s health code by restricting restaurant toy giveaways to only those meals that meet stringent nutritional guidelines. The Healthy Food Incentives Ordinance (10196) would apply to all San Francisco restaurants, but mostly affect fast food establishments that offer toys linked to the purchase of meals targeted to children and high in calories, salt or fat. In April 2010, Santa Clara County, California, became the first local government to enact a similar measure, highlighted in Issue 347 of this Update. The proposed San Francisco measure would prohibit restaurants from offering an “incentive item” such as toys, trading cards or admission tickets with a single menu item containing more than 200 calories or 480 milligrams of sodium or an entire meal containing more than 600 calories or 640 milligrams of sodium. Another stipulation calls for toy giveaway meals to provide no…
In a recent issue that celebrates the top diverse U.S. companies, including several food manufacturers and restaurant chains, Diversity Inc. calls out the food and beverage industry, in an investigative report, for marketing, public relations and lobbying tactics some believe have led to unhealthy eating habits and a national obesity epidemic. Titled How the Food Industry Profits While Society Pays, the report describes the effects of an overweight and obese society on the U.S. health care system, while noting that hundreds of hospitals have fast food restaurants on their premises. The report suggests that racial and social justice issues are implicated in the obesity epidemic, citing statistics showing that African-American, Latino and inner-city communities are saturated with fast-food restaurants. A report sidebar discusses the largest fast food chains, noting the tens of thousands of restaurants that bear their logos around the world and the ways they market to children. “On…
