A recent article in Law 360 (a service to attorneys) collected a covey of interesting factoids relating to a major hamburger vendor’s legal tangle relating to discrimination and harassment.  Seems Mickey D has been accused of sins in these areas, attracting litigation from shareholders that has ensnared one of the country’s major law firms and the entire board.

First, when accused of discrimination, the company did the right thing in hiring an independent law firm to investigate and report. Now the law firm itself has been sued for aiding and abetting sexual harassment by twice failing to fully uncover its scope, thereby bringing in another presumably solvent and (hopefully) insured defendant.

Second, an investor has sued based on discrimination against Black franchisees and executives, resulting in an alleged 85% decline in Black executives.

Third, another investor has sued the entire Board for breach of fiduciary duty in giving an executive a $56M separation package after termination for an improper relationship with a subordinate.

Without at all suggesting culpability on the part of any of the defendants in these varied litigations, one can nonetheless step back and admire the range of imagination exhibited by plaintiffs’ counsel in asserting various claims against a single enterprise.  It is, however, not necessarily a gravy train for all the lawyers — one firm faces major allegations of its inadequate investigation aiding and abetting its client company in failing properly to respond to harassment allegations.