The Burger King's Whopper trial will simply not disappear.
A federal judge in Florida this week denied Burger King's request to reject legal action against society for a false publicity linked to its famous hamburger. This is the last case of false ads targeting fast food chains.
The trial represents 19 people from 13 different states who say they bought the signature of Burger King based on “a false and misleading advertisement concerning the size and / or the quantity of ingredients”.
In a statement to Business Insider, Burger King denied complaints.
“The applicants' complaints are false,” said a company spokesman for BI. “The beef pancakes grilled by the flame described in our advertisement are the same pancakes used in the millions of burgers that we serve to the guests of the United States.”
Burger King filed a request in rejection of the pursuit in May 2022, two months after its first deposit. He argued that since each hamburger is handmade at the restaurant, the “look” of each sandwich “will necessarily be broadcast”.
The district judge of southern Florida, Roy Altman, however declared on Monday in his decision that he would allow the allegations of the applicant of false negligent declaration to move forward.
In some states, the law requires a client to have a “special relationship” with a company to continue it for false declarations in advertisements. The law defines a special relationship as requiring a “position of confidence or confidence”, as with a lawyer or an engineer. A food service company would not generally fall into this category. But Florida's law does not have this requirement, Altman wrote.
Altman said that Burger King lawyers “resist the reading of the law of the common sense of Florida” by suggesting that Burger King could not be responsible according to the absence of a special relationship.
The Russo cabinet, a law firm of collective appeal representing the complainants, wrote in a blog article that Altman's decision was “important”.
“The Court's decision highlights the importance of truthful advertising and can establish a precedent on how fast food chains represent their products,” said the position. “The result of this case could have broader implications for marketing standards within the industry.”
The WHOPPER trial is the latest example of false-advertis complaints targeting fast food chains. In 2023, for example, a Federal Judge of Brooklyn rejected a false similar advertising trials against Wendy and McDonald's who accused restaurants of marketing their burgers as larger than reality.
US District Judge Hector Gonzalez said in his decision for this case that the applicant did not prove that a reasonable consumer would have been misleading by advertisements.
Still in 2023, a man filed a collective appeal against Buffalo Wild Wings, accusing the company to distort her boneless chicken wings, which are actually made with chicken breasts.
Bill Marler, a lawyer specializing in food security cases, previously told Bi that these types of collective recourse are often legally unproductive and to browse the “thin line between consumer plea and the simple fact of being boring”.
“This raises the question of what is the real objective here? Are they a consumer defender, then extract the costs and costs of the company to discourage them from redoing it? Or is it just a tool to extract the costs and costs of a business?” Said Marler.
