Plaintiffs hugely gratified by the appeals court’s reversal of the lower court’s dismissal of the employee restriction case.
Lieff Cabraser represents fast-food employees in a series of lawsuits challenging the practices of fast-food franchises that illegally restrict employee mobility, advancement, and pay. The complaints allege the restaurants’ practices of restricting employees from being hired at other same-franchise stores violate antitrust law and cause worker wages to be lower than they should be. The practices also significantly limit employees’ career mobility and advancement. In late August 2022, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s decision to dismiss Lieff Cabraser’s “no-poach” employee pay and mobility restriction case against the fast food chain Burger King.
The trial court had earlier dismissed the Burger King no-poach case on the presumption that antitrust laws should treat these chains as a common enterprise or corporation, but the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s dismissal on the theory that each franchisee makes its own decisions and pursues its own economic interests in the labor market. This ruling by the Eleventh Circuit is the first of its kind by a Court of Appeals, and is expected to greatly impact how franchise systems operate with respect to labor and antitrust laws moving forward.
Learn more about Lieff Cabraser’s Antitrust/No-Poach Cases here.
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