Painful burns, horrific diseases, and the most embarrassing CEO downfall of
all time — fast food doesn't get more scandalous than this.
Most restaurant scandals are the result of company-wide wrongdoing,
but others can be attributed to a single person. The publicity nightmare in which
Papa John's found itself several years ago fell firmly into the latter category. Even worse,
that single person was none other than founder and chairman John Schnatter.
In May 2018, Schnatter used a racial slur while on a conference call. Ironically,
the call was being used as a media training exercise for the pizza mogul after he caused
a public uproar a year earlier by blaming declining sales on the NFL's national
anthem protests. Two months after the call, Schnatter released a statement, which said:
"News reports attributing the use of inappropriate and hurtful language to me
during a media training session regarding race are true. Regardless of the context,
I apologize. Simply stated, racism has no place in our society."
The fallout from Schnatter's offensive remark was swift. Just hours after the news came to light,
Major League Baseball announced it was indefinitely suspending
its Papa Slam promotion, which had been in place since 2016. That day,
Schnatter issued his resignation — and things haven't gotten much better since.
"I've had over 40 pizzas in the last 30 days, and it's not the same pizza,
it's not the same product, it just doesn't taste as good."
Nothing will have fast-food customers running for the exits faster than the words "E. coli
outbreak." Just ask Jack in the Box, which found itself smack dab in the center of a multi-state,
foodborne illness outbreak in the 1990s. It all started in January 1993,
when the Washington State Department of Health discovered a high number of children in and
around Seattle were suffering from a condition known as hemolytic uremic syndrome. Officials
traced the illnesses back to Jack in the Box hamburgers contaminated with E. coli.
In the ensuing weeks, similar cases were reported in California, Idaho,
and Nevada. In total, 73 Jack in the Box locations were affected.
More than 700 people got sick; 171 were hospitalized and four died.
Things only got worse for the hamburger chain in the outbreak's aftermath. Investigators
discovered that the restaurant's parent company, Foodmaker, Inc.,
ignored warnings from health officials and employees that Jack in the Box was
undercooking its hamburgers. This unwise decision contributed to hundreds of people getting sick and
ultimately cost the company millions of dollars to settle legal complaints filed by the victims.
If you were hoping restaurant chains learned their lesson from the Jack in the Box E. coli scandal,
think again. In 2020, the Department of Justice charged Chipotle with federal
violations for causing several outbreaks by mishandling food. According to authorities,
employees at various Chipotle restaurants across the country failed to follow safety protocols on
a number of separate occasions between 2015 and 2018. As a result, food served at these locations
became contaminated with norovirus, a highly contagious disease that can cause severe diarrhea,
vomiting, and cramping. More than 1,100 people got sick over the three-year period.
Authorities cited stressful work conditions, inadequate staffing, and lack of training as
contributors to the safety violations. Chipotle agreed to pay a record $25 million fine and
implement an enhanced food safety program. In a statement, US attorney Nick Hanna said:
"Today's steep penalty, coupled with the tens of millions of dollars Chipotle
already has spent to upgrade its food safety program since 2015,
should result in greater protections for Chipotle customers and remind others
in the industry to review and improve their own health and safety practices."
In 1992, 79-year-old Stella Liebeck ordered a coffee at a McDonald's drive-thru;
what happened next led to what may be the biggest restaurant scandal
of all time. While the car was parked, Liebeck put the coffee cup between her
knees in order to take off the lid. In the process, she spilled the coffee all over
herself. The scalding-hot liquid caused third-degree burns over 16% of her body,
and Liebeck remained in the hospital for more than a week. A full recovery took two years.
News of the incident spread across the country after Liebeck filed a lawsuit,
sparking a debate over who exactly was to blame. To some, this was simply a case
of a woman trying to bill a corporation for her clumsiness. The trial, however,
painted a different picture. It turned out that McDonald's had a policy of serving coffee
at 180 to 190 degrees, significantly hotter than that of other restaurants. Most damning
of all was the revelation that 700 people had previously been burned by McDonald's
coffee. The fast-food giant knew this, too, but never changed the serving temperature.
"I was not in it for the money, I was in it because I wanted them to bring
the temperature down so that other people would not go through the same thing I did."
Because of the company's wrongdoing, the jury awarded Liebeck $2.7 million
in punitive damages plus an additional $200,000 to cover her medical costs and recovery. These
numbers were later reduced to $480,000 and $160,000, respectively, before the
two parties agreed to settle the dispute for an amount reported to be less than $500,000.