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Attorney Calls Predation Endemic in Fast-Food Industry

In a multimillion-dollar court demand, a mother and her teenage daughter accuse a manager of “despicable lesbian sexual assault at McDonald’s,” including “pedophilic requests” to have sex with both of them.

HOUSTON (CN) — In a multimillion-dollar court demand, a mother and her teenage daughter accuse a manager of “despicable lesbian sexual assault at McDonald’s,” including “pedophilic requests” to have sex with both of them.

Jane Doe and her daughter D.S. sued “Vice Principal #1 and owner” in Harris County Court. The April 18 lawsuit describes the defendant as the restaurant manager and a vice principal of the franchise but does not identify her by name.

Their attorney Benjamin Hall said in an interview that D.S. was 16 years old when the manager began making sexual advances, and that the franchisee fired the manager after other employees filed a “slew” of complaints against her.

“The McDonald’s store manager was so reckless in her lesbian quest to have sex with plaintiffs she started calling plaintiffs her ‘bitches’ and telling others that she was going to make plaintiffs her ‘bitches’ and ‘sex slaves,’” the complaint states. “These statements were made in front of and to third parties, including customers, which caused tremendous embarrassment to plaintiffs,” and they began “within weeks of the child's employment,” according to the complaint.

The mother and daughter say they reported the manager to upper management, which ignored it, and kept them both on the manager’s shift, escalating the manager’s advances until both plaintiffs quit. They say the manager defamed them after they rejected her sexual advances, and that the upper managers “had knowledge of Vice Principal #1’s sexual predation upon other female victims before plaintiffs were victimized yet did nothing to remedy the abuses.”

Hall said in the interview that the problem appears to be endemic in the fast-food industry, whose managers habitually dismiss and undermine their employees’ rape and sexual harassment allegations. He said managers often ask employees to recount their allegations in dining areas, “while customers are sitting next to them eating fries.”

Hall said he did not identify the McDonald’s franchise in the complaint to give the franchisee an opportunity to settle out of court.

“It is not our intent to embarrass [the franchisee],” Hall said.

He said he will amend the complaint if he cannot settle it.

Hall cited cases of fast food managers making sexual advances toward 16-year-old girls in Ohio and California. He said predators seek management positions over entry level employees because it is an “optimal situation” for them.

“I'm surprised at how prevalent it is,” Hall said.

Hall represented a harassment victim who worked at a Houston Chipotle restaurant in 2013. That girl won a $7.65 million judgment in 2016 after the manager fled the country, according to CW39, a Tribune Media outlet.

Hall also represents another girl who says she was raped and sodomized repeatedly by her manager at a KFC when she was 16. That girl was granted a temporary restraining order against the man in December 2016. Her civil trial is set for January 2018 in Harris County Court, Hall said.

Jane Doe and D.S. seek $1 million to $10 million in damages, and punitive damages, for sexual assault, defamation, gross negligence, sexual harassment, negligent hiring and retention and assault and battery.

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Categories / Employment

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