A federal judge has refused to dismiss a racial discrimination lawsuit against McDonald’s tied to widely-criticized text messages CEO Chris Kempczinski sent former Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2021 about the shooting deaths of two Chicago children.
McDonald’s had asked U.S. District Judge Lindsay Jenkins to dismiss claims brought by former executive Michael Peaster, who had worked at McDonald’s for 35 years including a decade spent as its head of corporate safety, security and intelligence, according to court documents.
In a complaint filed in federal court in Chicago in December, Peaster said he had spoken up in a meeting held by Kempczinksi during fallout from the CEO’s text message comments on the shooting deaths of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams and 13-year-old Adam Toledo. Adams was shot and killed in a McDonald’s drive-thru on the West Side; Toledo was shot and killed by Chicago police officer in Little Village.
Kempczinski had appeared to blame the children’s parents for their deaths in text messages sent to Lightfoot, which led to calls for the CEO’s resignation when the texts were made public.
Kempczinski apologized, including by sending an apology video to employees, suppliers and franchisees. He also hosted a town hall meeting at McDonald’s headquarters.
Peaster alleges that during the town hall, he pushed back against an answer Kempczinski gave to another employee that Peaster viewed as “evasive, or worse,” according to his complaint. Peaster alleges the CEO and McDonald’s began discriminating against him after the town hall because of his race and retaliating against him because he had spoken up.
“Kempczinski ignored and refused to meet with Peaster to discuss job-related topics, even though normal company practice was for the CEO to accept Officers’ meeting requests routinely,” Jenkins wrote in summarizing Peaster’s allegations. Peaster alleges he had been set up to fail by McDonald’s and Kempczinski as a pretext for his termination; he was terminated in November 2022 in what he alleges was a racially discriminatory and retaliatory firing.
Peaster alleges McDonald’s set him up for failure by asking him to enhance security without meaningfully increasing his budget and by not allowing him to fill vacancies in his department, according to the judge’s order.
Peaster’s lawsuit made claims of disparate treatment, hostile work environment and retaliation. Jenkins dismissed his claims of a hostile work environment and of intentional infliction of emotional distress. She allowed the lawsuit to continue on the basis of racial discrimination and retaliation.
In allowing those claims to move forward, Jenkins wrote it was “reasonable to infer” from Peaster’s town hall comments that he was “attempting to speak up for African American employees who believed the text messages wrongly blamed parents.”
Jenkins also declined to dismiss Kempczinski as a defendant.
A spokesperson for McDonald’s declined to comment on the case Tuesday. Carmen Caruso, an attorney for Peaster, said he looked forward to trying the case.
