McDonald's Hooker Lawsuit: Woman Claims Burger Giant Turned Her To Prostitution

Wait, what are you doing with that hot oil?

Would you like fries with that? How 'bout a handy?

We could go on, but--for the sake of your chaffing--we won't.

The point being, a California woman filed a lawsuit in federal court there, claiming McDonald's played a prominent role in turning her from a burger jocky to a lady of the evening. Yes--the allegation is that McyD's turns nice girls to turning tricks.

Shelley Lynn filed the complaint, claiming she was economically and psychologically coerced into prostitution by her ex-husband Keith Handley, who is also named in the suit. Handley owns a company called Ivernia, a corporation that owned several McDonald's franchises, according to Courthouse News.

Lynn says she met Handley in Nevada in 1982, when she was hired to work the counter at one of the McDonald's he owned. She writes in the suit a number of allegations about McDonald's refusal to meet regular standards of living costs. Lynn claims McDonald's does not insure employee policies are in place to protect against unscrupulous and criminal individuals like Handley. It has an active, notorious, and hostile campaign to keep unions out. It offers an inferior health care plan and no pension benefits. Most employees are paid minimum wages as was Lynn. There is no affirmative action to encourage women employees and other women to purchase franchises.

When Lynn turned to her then-boss and future-hubby for the support she so desperately needed, Handley into a prostitute earning a lot of money -- at least for a non-union, low wage McDonald's employee. At the time Handley began dating Lynn, she says in her complaint, Handley ordered Mr. McGrady, one of his managers, to terminate Lynn for insubordination which was sham.

Later, the complaint states, that she would have to go to work as a prostitute because Handley could not maintain both the Las Vegas home and his home in Arroyo Grande. Handley then began pressuring Lynn on an almost daily basis, arguing with her every day that she needed to become a prostitute in a legal brothel, it was no big deal to engage in sex to make money, that she would lose her home and everything she had, which was true.

She seeks lost wages, special damages, compensatory damages, and punitive damages for sex trafficking, negligent retention and supervision of franchisees, and racketeering.