Lawsuits

Man Claims McDonald’s Drive-Through Discriminates Against Blind People

Don't get in the way of this man's inalienable right to a Big Mac.
Don’t get in the way of this man’s inalienable right to a Big Mac. Photo: Tim Boyle/2011 Bloomberg

A legally blind man in Louisiana is suing McDonald’s because he says the chain’s drive-through policy discriminates against people who can’t see. Scott Magee, a 35-year-old New Orleans resident, contends that not only do Mickey D’s drive-throughs “lack any meaningful accommodation for the blind” (like Braille, an audio interface, and whatnot) and therefore violate the Americans With Disabilities Act, but that employees have also laughed at him when he’s approached the window on foot during so-called “late-night” hours, that period when main dining rooms close and customers must order at drive-throughs. Magee’s lawyer maintains that, at least in his legal opinion, ordering from the late-night McDonald’s menu is “a quintessentially American activity that should not be denied to someone because of their disability.”

Late-night revelers craving drunk food, and even the occasional naïve horse-drawn-carriage rider wandering out of last century, have discovered their local McDonald’s onerous policy of not serving Big Macs or fries unless the customer’s butt is firmly placed in a car seat. Magee’s proposed class-action lawsuit offers a glimmer of hope, though it’s probably worth noting he has a brother, Emmett, who’s also blind and used the same lawyer to sue Coca-Cola for touch-screen vending machines that he claimed can’t be used by blind people. A judge threw that case out.

[USAT, Chicago Tribune]

Blind Man Sues Over McDonald’s Drive-Throughs