McDonalds Sued For $1.5M Over A Trivial Slight

The Webster Lucas Case: Lawyers Who Abet The Pursuit Of Speculative Litigation Must Be Punished

Americans tend to indulge in some absurdly speculative litigation, but this farcical case should be an embarrassment to the country’s entire legal system.

California man Webster Lucas is suing McDonalds for $1.5M, presumably for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Over what? He was only given one serviette with his burger and the store manager refused to give him any more.

"I should have went to eat at the Jack-in-the-Box because I didn't come here to argue over napkins I came here to eat", was the reported reply.

Being black, Mr Lucas has of course played the race card, despite the manager being a Mexican. Allegedly, the manager “was racist towards him and mumbled something that sounded like ‘you people’ ”.

Well yes, if a Mexican mumbled something to a black man that sounded like “you people”, that ought to be enough to prove aggravating circumstances of racism.

The lottery sized amount of $1.5M is due to Webster Lucas being allegedly unable to work as a result of emotional distress. Because, despite his obviously poor education, he earns a seven figure salary.

Webster Lucas has been “unable to work” because he is a lazy-ass motherfucker who believes he has found an excuse not to go to work. In a sensible industrial relations system, his employer should be able to sack him on the grounds of falsely claiming sick leave. No reasonable person becomes so stressed that they cannot work because they were refused an extra serviette. Even had the manager been white and called Mr Lucas a nigger, that could not possibly cause a grown man sufficient emotional distress to stay home from work. Just unwrap your burger, throw it in the manager’s face and go down the road to Jack-in-the-Box.

Some supernatural intervention has substantially raised Mr Lucas’ vocabulary in a just a few days. He has gone from expressing himself thus: “I should have went to eat at the Jack-in-the-Box” to sending an email to the McDonald’s manager saying he is “unable to work because of the intentional infliction of emotional distress”. Or could that have been his no win, no fee lawyers constructing the text of the email for him?

I don’t know who his lawyers are yet, but one might reasonably surmise that Mr Lucas is not funding this case himself, which brings me to my main point.

Americans are far more liberal in their interpretation of tort law than most, to the point where it is often clearly manipulated by lawyers who take on speculative cases on a no win, no fee basis, then seek to blackmail defendants into settling in order to avoid the much greater potential impost of a court case, particularly since a claim for recovery of costs against the plaintiff will be practically unenforceable, even if granted by the court.

Matters in which a plaintiff with little resources has a strong case make the no win, no fee model a valid element of the justice system. However, it only has a net benefit if balanced with the return of the tort of champerty and the ability to vigorously pursue it in relation to the conduct of lawyers.

In my opinion, the pursuit of the Lucas matter is a clear case of champerty and McDonalds should have a claim for all costs, plus reputational and punitive damages against Webster Lucas’ lawyers for this frivolous, clearly speculative action.

I said "should". I doubt if it actually will. That tells me the law is wrong.

I don't believe that third party funding of litigation is per se wrong in a free society, as long as the attendant moral hazard is rigorously contained.

Any third party funder of litigation, including lawyers prosecuting the matter substantially via their own funds, should be required to deposit a bond covering the defendant's expected costs. Moreover, in any case where the judgement is in favour of the defendant, costs should be jointly and severally awarded against the plaintiff and any funders. If the complaint was found to be vexatious or speculative, punitive damages should also be awarded. This would at least place the onus on any litigation funders to be confident in the righteousness of their case.