Food Court Law Blog

In October 2018, Jarvis Arrington, a former employee at a Burger King franchisee in Illinois, filed a class action complaint against Burger King Worldwide and Burger King Corporation (collectively, “Burger King” or “BKC”) for violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1. The plaintiffs alleged that BKC’s use of a no-hire provision in its standard franchise agreement was an anticompetitive restraint of trade that restricted employee mobility, artificially suppressing employee wages and bargaining power.

In May, President Biden announced the Drug Enforcement Administration’s proposed rule reclassifying marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act.

On May 28, 2024, Chief Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California certified a class of consumers in an action against Barilla Foods. The putative class action alleged that Barilla’s packaging and labeling misled consumers to believe that Barilla pasta products are produced in Italy and are sourced from Italian ingredients, when many of Barilla’s pasta products are produced in either New York or Iowa.

Over the past decade, companies have increasingly turned to the collection of consumer personal data to help them better understand and adapt to the habits, preferences, and needs of consumers, engage in targeted marketing, and gain insight into the broader marketplace—that is, to better compete. Some businesses have also quietly used the sale of their consumers’ personal data to third parties as an additional source of revenue.

In October 2018, a former line cook of a Burger King franchise restaurant in Illinois, filed a class action complaint against Burger King Worldwide and Burger King Corporation. Now, more than two years later, the putative class action has been given new life by the Eleventh Circuit.

In October of this year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals analyzed the issue of federal preemption of poultry product labeling in the context of the Cohen v. ConAgra Brand putative class action case. Read more to learn about how this case fits into the broader issue of false advertising claims in the food and beverage industry.

After the avalanche of lawsuits in 2019 and 2020 targeting products marketed as containing vanilla-flavoring were largely dismissed by federal courts nationwide, many predicted that vanilla product labeling lawsuits would have ceased, or at least decreased. But, these lawsuits continue to flood the courts—though still unsuccessfully.