Judges make important rulings every day. They decide guilt or innocence, the length of prison terms and the resolution of multimillion-dollar lawsuits.
Last week, Judge April M. Perry ruled in United States District Court in Chicago that a class-action lawsuit against McDonald’s over its McRib sandwich could proceed.
The lawsuit claims that McDonald’s is misleading consumers. Why? Because the McRib isn’t made from rib meat.
The meat in a McRib is pressed into a shape that resembles a small rack of ribs. And “rib” is right there in the name. But rib meat, which is pricier than other parts of a pig, is nowhere to be found.
McDonald’s says on its website that the meat is “seasoned boneless pork.” In 2013, it acknowledged to ABC News that the meat was pork shoulder. The lawsuit contends that additional parts of the pig are used as well.
The lawsuit accuses McDonald’s of “deliberate sleight of hand.” It asks for unspecified monetary damages and calls on the company to “desist from further naming, marketing and advertising practices” that it says have misled consumers.
McDonald’s noted there was a “Mc” before the word “rib” in the sandwich’s name to identify the product as being from the company. But Judge Perry, ruling that the suit could proceed, said that “the alleged problem is not the prefix but the suffix.”
The judge noted that while the McChicken sandwich contains chicken, the pattern does not remain true for every McDonald’s product. “Dinosaur nuggets did not contain dinosaur meat,” she wrote, “and the McFlurry does not come accompanied by a small snowstorm.”
Still, she wrote, “on the spectrum of literal to symbolic, the McRib is arguably much closer to the literal, given that rib meat actually exists in a way that dinosaur meat and tiny snowstorms in a cup do not.”
McDonalds said in a statement in January, when the suit was filed, that the lawsuit “distorts the facts and many of the claims are inaccurate.”
“Our fan-favorite McRib sandwich is made with 100 percent pork sourced from farmers and suppliers across the U.S.,” the company said.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not respond to requests for comment.
The McRib, which debuted in 1981, has developed something of a cult following over the years, stoked by its limited availability. Generally, It turns up only in the fall and only at some locations, leading fans to share details of where to find it on websites like the McRib Locator.
The sandwich, which also includes onions and pickles, is more expensive than most of the other offerings on the McDonald’s menu, selling for up to $8. The cost was brought up in the suit, which alleges that the price misleads consumers into thinking higher quality rib meat is involved.
The judge noted that allowing the suit to continue did not mean she agreed with the plaintiffs, just that their claim could be plausible. Some parts of the suit were dismissed, but most claims will go forward, for now.
“The court is not persuaded by defendant’s many arguments that it would be unreasonable or fanciful to think the McRib contains rib meat,” she wrote.
Kristen Noyes contributed research.
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