WASHINGTON -- Burger King officials Tuesday refused comment on a $500 million discrimination suit filed against the fast-food giant by a dozen black franchise owners, but defended its much publicized minority improvement program.
A class-action suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, contends the black owners were charged up to twice the amount to purchase franchises, and were deceived into accepting inferior locations for their restaurants.
The suit, filed by 10 present and two former Burger King franchise owners in areas including the District of Columbia, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Fairfax, Va., and Fredericksburg, Va., also claims Burger King forced some blacks out of business by acting 'maliciously, deliberately and anti-competitively' over the past eight years.
The lawsuit was filed by the Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense and Education Fund of Washington.
Doug Timberlake, a spokesman for Burger King in Miami, said Tuesday company officials had seen the lawsuit but had yet to 'digest' it, and would have no comment.
Burger King, owned by Pillsbury Corp., of Minneapolis, has been involved in a public effort to increase minority involvement of its operations, and Timberlake defended those efforts.
Five years ago, Burger King signed a voluntary agreement with Operation PUSH, the Chicago-based civil rights advocacy group headed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, to increase minority participation in the company.
The company has made strides in black ownership as well as placing more advertisements with black agencies and increasing contracts with minority-owned suppliers, said Timberlake.
'By and large it's been pretty successful,' said Timberlake. 'People on the PUSH side of the covenant are very pleased with it.'
Rev. Willie Barrows, national executive director for PUSH, agreed.
'This is probably the best covenant we've had,' Barrows told The Washington Post.
But Barrows did not return calls Tuesday and Russell Frisby, an attorney for the plaintiffs, charged the company with using the Operation PUSH agreement for publicity purposes while failing to make any major strides to increase minority participation.
Burger King officials said the number of its black-owned franchises have increased from 77 of 3,230 total five years ago to 190 of 5,055 so far in 1988.
The suit alleges that in one instance in 1985, a black purchased a Burger King in Media, Pa., for $500,000, but later discovered 'the purchase price of the store for a white franchise would have been $200,000.'
