New York State Senator Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx) has introduced a bill (S7849-2011) that would require fast-food restaurants offering incentive items, such as toys, with children’s meals to meet certain nutritional guidelines. The standards, designed to limit the amount of fat, sugar, calories, and sodium per meal, would be established by the state health commissioner. “Incentive items” under the proposal, which has been committed to the Committee on Rules, would also include games, trading cards, admission tickets, “or other consumer product, whether physical or digital, with particular appeal to children.” Such items would also include “any coupon, voucher, ticket, token, code or password which is provided directly by the restaurant and is redeemable for or grants digital or other access to any toy, game, trading card, admission ticket, or other consumer product” appealing to children. The measure defines restaurant to include coffee shops, cafeterias, luncheonettes, sandwich stands, diners, short-order cafes, fast-food…
Tag Archives restaurant
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that a Steak 'n Shake franchisee in Illinois was entitled to a preliminary injunction to stop the implementation of a new Steak 'n Shake policy for menu pricing and promotions. Stuller, Inc. v. Steak N Shake Enters., Inc., No. 11-2656 (7th Cir., decided August 24, 2012). The franchisee, in operation for more than 70 years, owns five restaurants and is the oldest Steak 'n Shake franchisee in the country. While Steak 'n Shake controls many aspects of restaurant management, some aspects are left to individual franchisees. Plaintiff Stuller, Inc. has had the ability to set menu prices throughout its history, but in June 2010, Steak 'n Shake demanded that all franchisees follow its menu pricing and promotions. Stuller brought a declaratory judgment action against Steak 'n Shake after the franchisor threatened to terminate Stuller’s franchises for refusing to implement the new policy. The…
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed a Title VII civil rights action against a Burger King restaurant claiming that it failed to accommodate the religious beliefs of a Pentecostal Christian woman who sought to wear skirts or dresses to work instead of uniform pants. EEOC v. Fries Rest. Mgmt., LLC, No. 12-3169 (N.D. Tex., filed August 22, 2012). The employee was hired as a cashier and had allegedly been informed when she interviewed for the position that she could wear a skirt to work, an accommodation she required because she “adheres to an interpretation of the scripture that requires women to wear only skirts or dresses.” When she arrived at work for orientation in a skirt, she was told she could not wear it and would have to leave the store. According to the complaint, “The result of the foregoing practice has been to deprive Ashanti McShan of equal…
A federal court in California has denied Chipotle Mexican Grill’s motion to dismiss putative class claims alleging that the company fraudulently represents that it uses only naturally raised meat in its menu items. Hernandez v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., No. 12-5543 (C.D. Cal., order entered August 23, 2012). According to the court, “Plaintiff need not show that he consumed non-naturally raised meat on one of his visits to Chipotle [because] the harm alleged [is that] Plaintiff purchased food at Chipotle, at a premium, based on Defendant’s representations that non-naturally raised meat was not used there.” The court also determined that the plaintiff adequately alleged a claim for fraudulent concealment and denied as premature that part of the defendant’s motion addressing the class allegations. The court did, however, order briefing on whether plaintiff’s counsel “would be adequate counsel to represent the class if a class were certified.” In this regard, the…
A California court has reportedly dismissed claims filed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) against fast-food chains, finding that the group failed to investigate its allegations before suing under Proposition 65 (Prop. 65). PCRM v. McDonald’s Corp., No. BC383722; PCRM v. KFC Corp., No. BC457193 (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles Cty., decided August 15, 2012). Filed in 2008 and 2011, the suits alleged that the restaurants failed to warn consumers that their grilled chicken menu items contain PhIP, a chemical known to the state to cause cancer. Yet, PCRM did not apparently visit the restaurants until February 2012 to take pictures of the posted warnings. The restaurants reportedly post notices that some of their products contain cancer-causing chemicals and refer customers to nutritional brochures for additional details. They contend that their warnings comply with Prop. 65. Information about similar litigation filed in San Francisco County appears in Issue…
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that a 2008 E. coli outbreak involving food prepared and served at a restaurant and a catered event constituted a single occurrence under the relevant insurance policies, thus reversing a magistrate judge’s conclusion that there were two occurrences and application of the policies’ aggregate limits rather than their “per occurrence” limits. Republic Underwriters Ins. Co. v. Moore, No. 11-5075 (10th Cir., decided July 20, 2012). The outbreak apparently infected 341 individuals, and one person died. When it appeared that the policy limits would be exceeded, the insurers brought this interpleader action, requesting that the court declare that the “per occurrence” limits applied, providing $3 million in coverage. Agreeing with the insurance companies, the Tenth Circuit stated, “[h]ere, all the injuries were proximately caused by the restaurant’s ongoing preparation of contaminated food. Hence, there was but one occurrence. It does not matter that…
Chilean Senator Guido Girardi has reportedly filed a formal complaint with the country’s Ministry of Health, alleging that fast-food companies have violated a new ban on using toys and other giveaways to market children’s meals. According to media sources, the complaint claims that several fast-food restaurants have flouted the law, along with other food manufacturers that purportedly use crayons, stickers and similar incentives to market products which appeal to children. Girardi has asked the Ministry of Health to enforce sanctions if the companies named in the complaint do not begin complying with the toy ban. “These businesses know that this food damages the health of children and they know that the law is in effect. They’re using fraudulent and abusive means,” said Girardi, who apparently drafted the law. “These corporations threatened that if the law was approved there would be no more money for children’s foundations, the sick, or athletes, but…
Representative John Carter (R-Texas) has introduced a bill (H.R. 6174) that would change the nutrition disclosure requirements for chain restaurants and other food outlets enacted in the Affordable Care Act that was recently upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Under the proposal, (i) delivery and take-out restaurants would be able to post calorie information on their websites; (ii) pizza shops would be allowed to provide calorie-per-slice labeling rather than whole-pizza totals and could publish average totals instead of calorie data for every possible combination of ingredients; (iii) stores would be protected from lawsuits where the nutrient disclosures are “within acceptable allowances” including “allowances for variation in serving size, inadvertent human error in formulation of menu items, and variations in ingredients”; and (iv) the term “restaurant” would be redefined to mean “a retail food establishment that derives more than 50 percent of its total revenue from the sale of…
A recent study has reportedly concluded that a New York City regulation restricting the use of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil by all food service establishments “was associated with a substantial and statistically significant decrease in the trans fat content of purchases at fast-food chains, without a commensurate increase in saturated fat.” Sonia Angell, et al., “Change in Trans Fatty Acid Content of Fast-Food Purchases Associated with New York City’s Restaurant Regulation,” Annals of Internal Medicine, July 2012. Funded by New York City and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Eating Research Program, researchers between 2007 and 2009 conducted a cross-sectional study matching purchase receipts with available nutrition information and consumer surveys at 168 randomly selected locations of 11 fast-food chains. Compared with data gathered before the trans fat restrictions took effect, the information collected after the regulation’s implementation allegedly demonstrated “an associated large and probably clinically meaningful reduction in the…
Restaurant trade organizations, an Oregon restaurant and one of its employees, a server, have filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), alleging that its interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, forbidding restaurants from distributing a share of tips to non-tipped employees, regardless of whether the restaurants use the tips as a credit toward paying their employees minimum wage, conflicts with a Ninth Circuit decision and will force the restaurants to incur significant costs or subject them to litigation. Or. Restaurant & Lodging Ass’n v. Solis, No. 12-01261 (D. Or., filed July 12, 2012). According to the Ninth Circuit ruling, restaurants can require that tips be shared with back-of-house and other non-tipped restaurant employees where the wait staff are paid at least full minimum wage and the restaurants do not take a tip credit. Cumby v. Woody Woo, Inc., No. 08-35718 (9th Cir.…
