Byron Allen’s $10 billion lawsuit against McDonald’s will go to trial

A judge has ruled in favor of media mogul and Grio owner Byron Allen, allowing his $10 billion racial discrimination lawsuit against McDonald’s to proceed to trial in a California federal court, theGrio reports.

U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin ruled that there was sufficient evidence that the lawsuit brought against McDonald’s by Allen’s media firms under Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was sufficient to send it to a trial court. The lawsuit alleges that the fast food chain blocked Allen and his media properties, including television networks and streaming assets, from McDonald’s general market promoting agency, which is chargeable for dissipating the overwhelming majority of McDonald’s massive promoting budget. Court documents show that McDonald’s spends a whole lot of tens of millions of dollars annually promoting its products in national media.

Instead, the lawsuit alleges that Allen and his firms have been relegated to McDonald’s black-only promoting agency, which has a much smaller budget. The racial discrimination lawsuit argued that despite annual requests to include the Allen Media firms in McDonald’s overall promoting market, they remained within the black-only market because Allen is black, which Allen’s parent company, Entertainment Studios, called “a blatant and pernicious discrimination.” “

In his 25-page ruling, Judge Olguin denied McDonald’s motion for summary judgment in its favor. Instead, the case will go to trial, which could end in Allen succeeding in a landmark racial discrimination lawsuit.

“We have overwhelming evidence against McDonald’s – which has been sued by Black executives, Black franchisees and their global chief security officer – for racial discrimination,” Byron Allen, founder, president and CEO of Allen Media Group, said in an announcement to Grio. “It is time for McDonald’s management, shareholders and civil rights organizations across the country to call for the resignation of CEO Chris Kempczinski, who was caught sending racist text messages about Black and Latino people.”

Allen’s attorney within the case, Louis R. “Skip” Miller of Miller Barondess, called Judge Olguin’s order “a historic ruling” and added: “We look forward to presenting evidence of McDonald’s racial discrimination against our client to a jury in Los Angeles in federal court “

The law utilized in Allen’s lawsuit against McDonald’s was a post-Civil War statute that granted “all persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” the identical right to keep contracts “as enjoyed by white citizens.” The purpose of the law was to protect black businesses from racial discrimination during America’s Reconstruction era, only one 12 months after the tip of the Civil War, freeing enslaved African Americans from centuries of slavery.