McDonald’s Corp. Must Face Sex Harassment Suit as Joint Employer

McDonald’s Corp. and McDonald’s USA LLC failed to convince a federal judge to drop them from a St. Louis franchisee worker’s sexual harassment suit, because the woman adequately alleged the companies were her “joint employers” under federal anti-bias law.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri distinguished the allegations in Barbara Johnson’s lawsuit against the companies and franchisee Tenaj LLC from other suits by McDonald’s employees where joint employment was found to be insufficiently pleaded. Johnson worked at a restaurant owned by Tenaj for just a few weeks after being hired in 2018 and allegedly had no ...