ShareThisThe largest casual dining chain in the world, Applebee's, faces a class-action lawsuit after an E.W. Scripps media investigation found that it and other popular chain restaurants touted "healthy" dishes that actually contained far more calories and fat than the eateries claimed.
Law firms in Kansas, Washington, New York and Illinois filed the suit against Applebee's International, its parent company DineEquity and Weight Watchers on behalf of every person who has eaten from Applebee's Weight Watchers Menu over the last four years, said Tara Kelly, one of the lawyers in the lawsuit.
Kelly said the idea for the lawsuit was spawned by the finding of a Scripps Television Station investigation.
Last spring, Scripps tested food in eight cities from popular chains that cater to calorie counters by offering what they advertise as special, health-conscious menus. The investigation found that dishes sampled at some Applebee's, Taco Bell, and Chili's restaurants, among others, sometimes contained as much as twice the calories and eight times the fat that the restaurants claimed in their published nutrition information.
Applebee's International, based in Lenexa, Kan., puts a lot of "rigor" into its calorie counting, company spokesman Miles McMillin said. "We take these claims very seriously," he said.
McMillin said that variability in portion size -- with larger portions registering more fat and calories than an average-sized portion on which the menu information is based-- is inevitable. "Our meals are handmade," he said. "They don't come out of a box."
The Scripps investigation named several restaurant chains; this suit focuses only on Applebee's, its parent company and Weight Watchers, but attorneys said they might pursue class action suits against them, too.
"It's certainly possible," said attorney Alyson Foster, who estimates that the number of people who ordered from the Weight Watchers Menu over the last four years was in the millions.
The chain has almost 2,000 locations in 49 states, 17 international countries and one U.S. territory. The financial scope of the lawsuit is not yet clear, Kelly said.
Claudia E. Dal Lago, a spokeswoman for New York City-based Weight Watchers, wrote in a statement that the organization has "demanding compliance standards" for its restaurant and licensing partners.
"Based on Applebee's testing and quality assurance programs, we believe that customers received accurate information," Dal Lago wrote. "Weight Watchers will continue to work with Applebee's to review these issues carefully."
Filed last September, the lawsuit is picking up steam as more Applebee's customers find out about it, Kelly said. Her firm has received hundreds of calls and e-mails from those customers. Kelly said she hopes the suit will include every person who has eaten from the Weight Watchers Menu in the last four years.
Kelly's team of lawyers has met multiple times with attorneys from Applebee's, and a trial is scheduled for spring 2010, she said.
Kelly wouldn't say if she or other attorneys have conducted their own food tests, or if they are relying solely on the Scripps' sponsored nutritional tests, which were conducted by Analytical Labs in Boise, Idaho.
(E-mail Isaac Wolf of the Scripps Howard News Service at wolfi(at)shns.com)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Applebees/Weight Watchers
Legislators - stay out the the restaurant kitchen!
“I’m their chef not their dietitian,” was a quote from Chef Anthony Bourdain at a meeting of chefs. He was responding to a question about his heavy use of butter and cream from someone who knew he was a classic French Chef…shame on them for asking. The chef’s answer was right on.
This really plays to my frustration with legislators telling the restaurant industry what needs to be on menu boards, where fast food restaurants can or can’t open and blaming foodservice operators for obesity. Compliance to misdirected legislation on menuing is opening the door to lawsuits. This lawsuit and now class action started by a patron who ordered a Weight Watcher meal at an Appleby’s, had it analyzed to see if it matched the posted (mandated) nutritionals which of course it didn’t –that was predictable. Legislating the posting of nutritionals on menus demonstrates a total lack of understanding of how impossible it is for every order to come out exactly as posted. Preparing a dish for a patron using other than 100% pre-portioned ingredients with pretty much guarantees some plus or minus deviations from what’s posted. Take the dish to lab for analysis guarantees a trip to a lawyer next, then the media!
I have faith that when Appleby’s menu developers created and analyzed the Weight Watcher meal and put it on the menu it was done with honesty and integrity; not with a “gotcha” patron in mind bent on proving it incorrect. Enter the chef or young line cook building that dish for patron-gotcha and creativity on the part of the food preparer factors in. I’m assuming that with good intentions he or she may have added a little more dressing, sautéed it in a little more oil, added just a little more cheese, or made the portion just a little bigger all to make it just a little better. The cook took pride; the customer took them to court. It’s going to happen a lot.
Legislators that are getting the into restauant business are the same folks who decided that the Senate dining room should change the name of French fries to Freedom Fries after 9/11 (too clueless to know that french [small “f”] refers to the cut-style not the country), that parents are neither responsible for their kids’ obesity nor are they responsible for their own bad choices. This type of publicity just opens the door to law suits based on unreasonalbe expectations. Let's see can I get a case based on all of us that asked for a decafe and got regular coffee and stayed awake to watch the late late late show? Now those are damages!
Done Ranting!