McDonald's to pay $700,000 in halal lawsuit

"There was no evidence that the chain set out to deceive customers." So why the $700,000 payout?

Pamela Geller asks: "So meat producers in the US who are selling unlabeled meat that is halal should be the target of a multi-million dollar lawsuit, no?"

And David Wood observes:"Some Dearborn Muslims may have been given non-halal chicken at McDonalds. It could have been worse, however. They could have been thrown in jail for answering questions, as we were at the 2010 Arab Festival. But apparently what happens to Christians doesn't matter in Dearborn."

"McDonald's settles Mich. suit over Islamic diet," by Jeff Karoub for the Associated Press, January 21 (thanks to all who sent this in):

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.

Ahmed's attorney, Kassem Dakhlallah, told The Associated Press on Monday that he's "thrilled" with the preliminary deal that's expected to be finalized March 1. McDonald's and Finley's Management deny any liability but say the settlement is in their best interests.

The lawsuit alleged that Ahmed bought a chicken sandwich in September 2011 at a Dearborn McDonald's but found it wasn't halal — meaning it didn't meet Islamic requirements for preparing food. Islam forbids consumption of pork, and God's name must be invoked before an animal providing meat for consumption is slaughtered.

Dakhlallah said there are only two McDonald's in the United States that sell halal products and both are in Dearborn, which has one of the nation's largest Arab and Muslim communities. Overall, the Detroit area is home to about 150,000 Muslims of many different ethnicities.

The locations advertise that they exclusively sell halal Chicken McNuggets and McChicken sandwiches and they have to get those products from an approved halal provider, Dakhlallah said. He said there was no evidence of problems on the production side, but he alleges that the Dearborn location on Ford Road sold non-halal products when it ran out of halal.

Dakhlallah said he was approached by Ahmed, and they conducted an investigation. A letter sent to McDonald's Corp. and Finley's Management by Dakhlallah's firm said Ahmed had "confirmed from a source familiar with the inventory" that the restaurant had sold non-halal food "on many occasions."

After they received no response to the letter, Dakhlallah said, they filed a lawsuit in Wayne County Circuit Court in November 2011 as part of a class action.

The AP left messages Monday afternoon for attorneys representing the corporation and the franchise.

In the settlement notice, Finley's Management said it "has a carefully designed system for preparing and serving halal such that halal chicken products are labeled, stored, refrigerated, and cooked in halal-only areas." The company added it trains its employees on preparing halal food and "requires strict adherence to the process."

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

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16 Comments

| Leave a comment

blangwort | January 21, 2013 10:33 PM | Reply

Whoever the lawyer is representing this guy, I suggest he purchase a gun and learn to use it.

These people don't take losing kindly.

Infidel | January 22, 2013 2:42 AM | Reply

Hopefully, this should teach McD, BK, Wendys, Jack-in-the-box, Carl's Jr, Wendys, Boston Market, et al to not offer halal meat to customers, period. That way, they won't get into trouble such as this

Infidel | January 22, 2013 2:50 AM | Reply

Damn, mentioned Wendys twice

Khushi1 | January 22, 2013 5:09 AM | Reply

Very simple.
All food chains must take note:
No halal food. No lawsuits.

Aardvark | January 22, 2013 6:01 AM | Reply

Most meat sold in the UK is halal too - I checked with the larger supermarket chains and they all admitted it. They also said they couldn't label it as such, it would be too difficult. And when I complained to my MP all I got was a long and pretty meaningless load of waffle...

So the answer to Pamela's question is YES! Please, somebody, sue these people for selling unlabelled halal meat to non-mohammedans! I do not want to eat meat from animals that have been deliberately tortured to death!

And there is also the question of the money paid to some scruffy bearded savage for chanting spells over the meat. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but I suspect that most of that ends up paying for jihad.

duh_swami | January 22, 2013 6:24 AM | Reply

Personally I wouldn't spend a nickle at any meat palace...It's like Forrest said...Eating in these places is like a box of chocolates...You never know what you will get...They should drop halal altogether and stick with their regular cardboard burgers...They should get out of the 'catering to the religious' business...It's a losing proposition...

Option61c | January 22, 2013 6:26 AM | Reply

Dakhlallah said he was approached by Ahmed, and they conducted an investigation.

This should likely read "Dakhlallah said he was approached by Ahmed, and they concluded that this was a deep pocketed mark just ripe for a nuisance law suit." Actually, it's the perfect operation...Stealth Jihad and a cash con all rolled into one.

Softly Bob | January 22, 2013 7:44 AM | Reply

We've had years and years of Jews living in the West but I hear of no kosher lawsuits. Why's that?
It's about time the fast-food industry got back to doing what they do best, making crappy unhealthy food in their own inimitable way. If you don't like it don't buy it. Personally, I eat McDonalds because I enjoy the taste of their reprocessed garbage. I don't eat it because some bug-eyed, bearded moron has cast his Satanic spell on it and prayed to his Moon god. In fact, I'd rather not touch it all if some bug-eyed, bearded moron has been anywhere near it.
Leave Halal alone, and if you really want to make sure that your food is halal-free, stick to bacon.
Oink, oink!

duh_swami replied to comment from Softly Bob | January 22, 2013 8:21 AM | Reply

In fact, I'd rather not touch it all if some bug-eyed, bearded moron has been anywhere near it.

There have been several cases of deliberately contaminating food for sale, with various unspeakable substances...

Andy Lewis | January 22, 2013 8:32 AM | Reply

Gotcher halal meat right here, Achmed.

david | January 22, 2013 8:56 AM | Reply

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CD4QtwIwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dio_HLVYN37s&ei=A5f-UKDbLseNiAf3woDQBg&usg=AFQjCNHIGWkE2JEmyaBjE9QPUjr69idMOQ&sig2=JUir7qT0_hqMIOGyjT7ERQ

KFC Muslim employee in Australia goes nuts after being asked for a bacon burger. He he

tellurye | January 22, 2013 10:03 AM | Reply

Im not agreeing with this, tho Im not surprised. What about the woman who won a chunk of money because the coffee she bought was "hotter" than she thought? Or the guy who sued because the 1/4 pounder doesnt really weigh 1/4 pound (which is why they ammended the advertisements to say "*net weight before cooking")

People sue for the dumbest things. Did this guy eat $700,000 worth of chicken? Did the whole community? Why just the Muslim community? Why not everyone? Didn't non-muslims eat there as well? (though they did not care if it was Halal or not)

I was in Dearborn during that time and I ate chicken...do I get a piece of that pie?

Great...let's give more money to the Muslim community, in which over 80% of their mosques teach violent Jihad against non-muslims.

darmanad | January 22, 2013 10:33 AM | Reply

"There was no evidence that the chain set out to deceive customers." So why the $700,000 payout? asks RS.
The answer is that it basic US tort law that a misrepresentation negligently made may be actionable and entitle those injured to damages. In other words, one doesn't have to intentionally deceive for an injured person to get compensatory damages. In this case the McDonald's in question apparently made a false commercial claim that it should have known wasn't true. One can not turn a blind eye to its manufacturing standards to avoid liability for false claims.
In deed a misrepresentation made within a commercial context, i.e. false advertising, is likely a separate category of misrepresentation covered by state statutory laws which may invoke heavier penalties than non-commercial misrepresentations carry.
In any case, the McDonalds in question should have known that the chicken wasn't as advertised whether it be halal, white meat only, kosher, additive free or any category that may be of concern to consumers. If, in fact, the misrepresentation concerned the non-use of growth hormones, no one would be complaining that this case was offensive to our sense of justice.

Jorma | January 22, 2013 2:39 PM | Reply

Is it still halal food if they say before the slaughter that Mohammed was not a prophet but an evil bastard.

dumbledoresarmy replied to comment from Aardvark | January 22, 2013 5:46 PM | Reply

You wrote - "Most meat sold in the UK is halal too - I checked with the larger supermarket chains and they all admitted it. They also said they couldn't label it as such, it would be too difficult. And when I complained to my MP all I got was a long and pretty meaningless load of waffle...

"So the answer to Pamela's question is YES! Please, somebody, sue these people for selling unlabelled halal meat to non-mohammedans! I do not want to eat meat from animals that have been deliberately tortured to death!

"And there is also the question of the money paid to some scruffy bearded savage for chanting spells over the meat. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but I suspect that most of that ends up paying for jihad."

This business of halal-slaughtered meat - beef, chicken, lamb - being sold for general consumption, **unlabelled** (or else only indicated as such in the fine print), on such a scale that you have to look high and low to find anything that has *not* been halal-slaughtered, is a big deal in Australia, too.

Q Society has been looking into it.

Certifying stuff as 'halal' has become a nice little earner for Muslims - especially in the meat industry, where it can become a way for Muslims to end up virtually monopolising slaughter and processing of all non-pork meats. And the fees paid to a Muslim witchdoctor for coming in and saying, yes, your product is halal, become a way of siphoning off funds...and like you, I'll bet that some of those funds end up as zakat for Jihad and da'wa. And it's ongoing: certification isn't a one off, the business/ product has to be checked up on at regular intervals, to make sure they are *still* halal...And of course, that then becomes part of the 'cost of production' passed on to the hapless consumer; pay a bit more for stuff that's been halal-certified, and thus, a little bit of the money you pay has been 'skimmed off' by the Muslims...

That's the real issue here: the constant and insidious Muslim campaign - while they are still a small beachhead in both Australia and the USA - to make halal (halal meat, primarily, but also a whole slew of other products) the unlabelled *default* or *norm*, and force non-halal out of the market. Thus denying consumer choice to *non-Muslims*.

A further observation.

You will notice that in bringing this suit, the Muslim was represented by a Muslim lawyer:

"Ahmed's attorney, Kassem Dakhlallah".

I wonder just how many Muslims, by now, have penetrated the judiciary in non-Muslim Western countries - and, probably, in India? How many of our graduating lawyers, in any given western country, are Muslims?

More and more, one sees Muslims being represented by Muslim lawyers.

Another poster here, awhile ago, I think it may have been PJG, remarked on the large numbers of Muslims at western universities studying law. (There are similar numbers studying chemistry, nuclear physics, engineering, pharmaceuticals, microbiology...all the subjects you need in order to be able to wage warfare of the nastiest kind).

Infiltration and subversion, infiltration and subversion.

darmanad replied to comment from dumbledoresarmy | January 22, 2013 6:17 PM | Reply

So file a lawsuit.

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