McRib Lawsuit Survives: Judge Perry Says Expecting Rib Meat Is "Not Unreasonable or Fanciful"

The McRib lawsuit will go forward. On Friday, October 30, 2026, U.S. District Judge April M. Perry of the Northern District of Illinois refused to throw out the proposed class action accusing McDonald's of selling a sandwich called the McRib that contains no rib meat. She let the consumer deception, fraud and unjust enrichment claims proceed and dismissed five other counts without prejudice. The ruling in Le v. McDonald's Corp., No. 1:25-cv-15609, does not find that McDonald's misled anyone. It holds that four consumers have alleged enough to reach discovery, and that whether a reasonable buyer expects ribs in a "McRib" cannot be settled on the pleadings.

The ruling is about a sandwich, but the legal question is a common one. Brands that use a descriptive-sounding product name have long argued that no reasonable consumer reads a trademark literally. Perry rejected that argument at the pleading stage. In a line Reuters and the ABA Journal both quoted, she wrote that "Plaintiffs' proffered understanding of 'McRib' is not unreasonable or fanciful." For food, beverage and consumer-goods companies, and for the plaintiffs' firms that sue them, that is the part that matters. A coined name with an ingredient in it can be challenged as a representation about that ingredient.

What did the judge rule in the McRib lawsuit?

Judge Perry denied McDonald's motion to dismiss the case as a whole and kept its central claims alive. According to Reuters, Fox Business and QSR Web, the surviving claims are consumer deception under state consumer-protection law, common-law fraud, and unjust enrichment. Five other counts were dismissed without prejudice. That means the court found them inadequately pleaded but did not bar them, and the plaintiffs may try again in an amended complaint. Published reports do not say which five counts were dismissed, and the written order was not publicly available when this article was published, so this article does not guess.

The opinion rests on four points, each reported by more than one outlet:

1. The reading is plausible. Perry found it premature to accept McDonald's argument that no reasonable consumer would expect rib meat in a sandwich called the McRib. She treated the question as one of fact, not something to decide on a motion to dismiss.
2. The trademark is not a shield. McDonald's argued that "McRib" is a registered brand name, not a statement about what is in the patty. Perry rejected that. She pointed to other items on the McDonald's menu, the McChicken and the Egg McMuffin, whose names describe their ingredients. A customer used to that naming pattern could reasonably read "McRib" the same way.
3. Buyers need not research a cheap sandwich. McDonald's website describes the patty only as pork. Perry, as Reuters reported, said reasonable consumers do not have to investigate before buying a fast-food sandwich that costs about $7.
4. Intent is adequately alleged, for now. Perry said advertising that highlights the patty's rib-like shape could support an inference of intent to defraud. She added that the plaintiffs will need more proof later.

What does the McRib lawsuit allege?

The plaintiffs allege that McDonald's sells the McRib as a rib sandwich without rib meat in it. Four consumers filed the complaint on December 23, 2025: Peter Le of California, Charles Lynch of New York, Dorien Baker of Illinois and Darrick Wilson of Washington, D.C. They amended it in March 2026. They allege that the name, the price, and a patty pressed with ridges to look like a rack of ribs together tell buyers they are getting rib meat.

According to the complaint as described by Axios, Fox Business and NBC Chicago, the patty contains no rib meat. The plaintiffs allege it is made from "lower-grade pork products" such as pork shoulder, heart, tripe and scalded stomach. Their damages theory is a price premium: buyers paid more than they would have for a sandwich honestly described as restructured pork. The proposed class covers everyone who bought a McRib in the four years before filing. It seeks damages and restitution.

The complaint relies on two consumer surveys:

Survey	Respondents	Result
Expectation survey	215	155 (72%) said they expected the McRib to contain rib meat
Materiality survey	174	118 (67%) said rib meat was important or very important to their purchase

These numbers matter twice. At the pleading stage they made the plaintiffs' reading plausible. At class certification they will become the basis for arguing that the alleged deception was material across the whole class, which is the question that usually decides whether a food-labeling case is certified.

Does the McRib contain rib meat?

McDonald's has not said the McRib contains rib meat. It says the patty is "100% pork" from farmers and suppliers across the United States, and it specifically denies that the patty contains heart, tripe or stomach. When the suit was filed, the company said it "distorts the facts and the claims are meritless," and it has repeated that position since the ruling. That leaves the main factual dispute narrower than the headlines suggest. The question is less whether the McRib has rib meat and more which pork cuts the patty uses, and whether a reasonable consumer expects anything more specific than "pork" from the name and the ridged shape. Discovery into McDonald's specifications and supplier records will answer the first part. A jury, or a judge at summary judgment, would answer the second.

Which McRib lawsuit claims survived and which were dismissed?

Three categories of claims survived: consumer deception under state statutes, fraud, and unjust enrichment. Five counts were dismissed without prejudice. Because the four named plaintiffs live in four jurisdictions, the case draws on several bodies of consumer-protection law. These typically include the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, New York General Business Law §§ 349 and 350, California's Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law and Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act. Reports on the ruling do not list which statutes were pleaded in which counts, so this list describes what is typically available to residents of those jurisdictions, not the order's count-by-count result.

The fraud count surviving matters because of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b). Fraud must be pleaded with particularity: who said what, where, when and how. Courts in the Seventh Circuit regularly dismiss food-labeling fraud claims for failing to allege facts supporting intent. Perry's view that rib-focused advertising could support an inference of intent got the plaintiffs past that hurdle at this stage. Defendants want fraud claims dismissed early because those claims can support punitive damages under some state laws and make broader discovery into marketing decisions easier to obtain.

Why the "no reasonable consumer" defense failed

McDonald's main argument was legal: no reasonable consumer could think a branded fast-food sandwich called the McRib contains rib meat. The Seventh Circuit has made that argument hard to win on a motion to dismiss. In Bell v. Publix Super Markets, Inc., 982 F.3d 468 (7th Cir. 2020), which involved "100% Grated Parmesan Cheese" labels on products containing additives, the court held that the reasonable-consumer standard asks how real consumers likely read a label. It also held that a defendant cannot defeat a plausible reading of an ambiguous front-of-package claim by pointing to clarifying fine print elsewhere. Judges in the Northern District of Illinois apply that framework all the time. It explains why Perry gave little weight to the website's description of the patty as pork. Consumers were not required to go and find that description.

The trademark argument fared no better. Brand names can be fanciful, like Kodak, or suggestive. A name that includes an actual food item, sold by a company whose other product names describe their ingredients, invites the literal reading. That is the point of Perry's McChicken and Egg McMuffin examples. The ruling does not mean every fanciful name is now open to challenge. Courts have dismissed suits over Froot Loops and Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries because no reasonable consumer expects fruit or berries in a cereal with an obviously whimsical name. The McRib sits closer to the McChicken than to Crunch Berries, at least on the pleadings.

Timeline of the McRib case

Date	Event
Dec. 23, 2025	Four consumers file a proposed class action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Jan. 5, 2026	The suit is widely reported; McDonald's says it "distorts the facts" and plans to seek dismissal
March 2026	Plaintiffs file an amended complaint
Oct. 30, 2026	Judge Perry denies dismissal of the deception, fraud and unjust enrichment claims and dismisses five counts without prejudice
Oct. 31, 2026	No settlement, settlement fund or claim form exists; reports warn of fake "McRib settlement" claim sites
Next	Possible amended complaint, McDonald's answer, discovery, then a Rule 23 class certification motion

Does the McDonald's app arbitration clause block McRib claims?

Possibly, for some buyers, but McDonald's has not been reported to have raised arbitration in this case, and the clause would not reach most purchases. In 2023, McDonald's revised the terms for its U.S. app and loyalty program. Coverage at the time by Daily Meal, Parade and others reported that the terms require binding individual arbitration administered by JAMS, include a class action waiver and a jury-trial waiver, and give users two options: accept the terms or delete the app. Several outlets also described a mandatory multi-step pre-arbitration notice and informal resolution process before any arbitration can be filed. That is the kind of front-end procedure that has become standard in consumer clauses written with mass arbitration in mind.

Three points limit how far that clause could reach in the McRib case:

• Channel. A customer who orders at the counter, at a kiosk or in the drive-through without logging into the app has not agreed to the app terms for that purchase. Whether a clause signed for app use covers an unrelated in-store purchase depends on the clause's scope language and on state contract law. Courts split on that question.
• Waiver by litigation conduct. After Morgan v. Sundance, Inc., 596 U.S. 411 (2022), a party that litigates the merits without promptly invoking arbitration can waive the right, and the other side does not have to show prejudice. A defendant that spends a year on a motion to dismiss without moving to compel risks that argument for the named plaintiffs, though not necessarily for absent class members who used the app.
• Class definition. The practical use of the clause is at class certification. McDonald's could argue that app purchasers belong in arbitration and must be removed from any class. That could shrink the class or split it into subclasses by purchase channel.

For claimants' counsel, the same clause cuts the other way. If app purchasers are pushed into individual JAMS arbitration, the JAMS mass arbitration procedures and fee schedule govern. The business pays most of the filing costs, and thousands of coordinated demands become expensive for the respondent. That is how class action waivers in consumer terms have produced mass arbitration in other industries.

How does the McRib case compare with other fast-food lawsuits?

The McRib ruling falls in the middle of recent fast-food marketing cases. Courts have let claims based on specific representations go forward and thrown out claims based on general impressions. The closest comparison is the Burger King Whopper case.

Case	Court	Theory	Pleading-stage outcome
Le v. McDonald's Corp. (McRib)	N.D. Ill., Judge April M. Perry	Name and rib-shaped patty imply rib meat	Deception, fraud and unjust enrichment survive; five counts dismissed without prejudice (Oct. 30, 2026)
Coleman v. Burger King Corp. (Whopper size)	S.D. Fla., Judge Roy K. Altman	Menu-board photos overstate patty size	In-store menu-board claims survived; TV and online ad claims dismissed (2023)
Size suit against McDonald's and Wendy's	E.D.N.Y.	Ad photos make burgers look bigger	Dismissed (September 2023)
In re Subway Footlong litigation	E.D. Wis. MDL; Seventh Circuit	Sandwiches shorter than 12 inches	Class settlement approved in 2016, then vacated by the Seventh Circuit in 2017 as worthless to the class

The Subway outcome is a Seventh Circuit warning that also applies here: a settlement that gives class members little or nothing while paying counsel will not survive appeal. The pattern matters for predicting what happens next. In Coleman, Judge Altman distinguished the dismissed McDonald's and Wendy's suit because Burger King allegedly overstated size by a much larger margin. The claims that survived were those tied to a specific representation at the point of sale. The McRib case has a stronger version of that: the representation is the product's name, printed on every menu board, and it is supported by surveys. That does not guarantee certification, but it gives the plaintiffs a classwide representation, which is the element food-labeling cases most often lack.

What happens next in the McRib lawsuit?

The case now moves to pleadings and discovery, and the next major ruling will be on class certification. In the near term, the plaintiffs can file an amended complaint to try to revive the five dismissed counts, and McDonald's must answer the surviving claims. Discovery will cover the patty's specifications and supplier records, McDonald's marketing materials and testing of the rib-shaped design, internal research on what customers think the McRib is, and pricing data needed for a price-premium damages model.

Class certification under Rule 23 will be the real test. The plaintiffs must show that common questions predominate: that the "McRib" name is a uniform representation, that it was material to buyers in general, and that a damages model, usually a conjoint survey, can isolate the price premium tied to the rib representation. McDonald's will likely argue that many customers buy the McRib knowing what it is, that the product's limited, seasonal availability makes purchase records hard to reconstruct, that prices vary by franchisee, and possibly that app purchasers are bound to arbitrate. Interlocutory appeal of the denial of dismissal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) is possible but rare. A certification ruling, by contrast, can be appealed by petition under Rule 23(f) within 14 days.

What it means for brands, class counsel and defense counsel

For consumer brands and their marketing counsel. Product names that use a real ingredient word are now a litigation risk, even when the name is a registered trademark. The safest names are clearly fanciful or accurately descriptive. Names in between, like the McRib, should come with point-of-sale disclosures that are hard to miss, not just a description on the website. Perry's point about $7 purchases suggests that courts will expect disclosures to be visible where the purchase decision is made.

For plaintiffs' class counsel. The ruling shows why the complaint was built the way it was: named plaintiffs from four large consumer-protection jurisdictions, two surveys attached before any discovery, and fraud allegations tied to specific advertising about the patty's shape. Surveys at the pleading stage are becoming standard in food cases. They help get past "no reasonable consumer" arguments and set up the materiality showing needed for class certification.

For defense counsel. The ruling confirms that in the Seventh Circuit, a "no reasonable consumer" argument rarely wins at the pleading stage when the challenged representation is ambiguous. The stronger defense arguments usually come later: individual differences in what buyers knew, price variation, and flaws in damages models. Defendants whose consumer terms contain arbitration clauses also need to decide early whether to invoke them. Morgan v. Sundance removed the prejudice requirement for waiver, so waiting can cost them the clause.

For mass arbitration practitioners. If McDonald's later uses its app terms to remove app purchasers from a class, those buyers could still bring individual JAMS demands. A claim worth a few dollars is a negative-value claim in individual litigation. Under a business-funded fee schedule, it can become valuable when filed in volume. Whether that happens depends on what the class definition looks like after certification.

FAQ

What did the judge rule in the McRib lawsuit?

On October 30, 2026, Judge April M. Perry of the Northern District of Illinois denied McDonald's motion to dismiss the core of the McRib lawsuit. Consumer deception, fraud and unjust enrichment claims will proceed, and five other counts were dismissed without prejudice.

Can I join the McRib class action or file a claim?

Not yet. No class has been certified, so there is nothing to join and no claim form. If a class is later certified or a settlement is reached, eligible buyers would receive court-approved notice. Websites currently asking for personal information to claim a "McRib settlement" are not affiliated with the court.

Is there a McRib settlement?

No. As of October 31, 2026, there is no settlement, settlement fund or claims process in Le v. McDonald's Corp., and McDonald's continues to call the claims meritless.

Does the McRib contain rib meat?

McDonald's describes the patty as 100% U.S. pork and has not claimed it contains rib meat. The plaintiffs allege it contains none and is made from pork shoulder and organ meats, which McDonald's denies. The ruling did not decide what is in the patty.

Who are the plaintiffs and where is the case pending?

The plaintiffs are Peter Le (California), Charles Lynch (New York), Dorien Baker (Illinois) and Darrick Wilson (Washington, D.C.). The case is Le v. McDonald's Corp., No. 1:25-cv-15609, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago.

What happens next in the McRib lawsuit?

The plaintiffs may amend the dismissed counts, McDonald's will answer, and the parties will move into discovery before a Rule 23 class certification motion. That motion, not the October 30 ruling, will decide whether the case goes forward on behalf of McRib buyers nationwide.