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By Amanda Greenwood
Associate News Editor
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McDonald’s must face a class-action lawsuit alleging that the name, appearance, and marketing of its McRib sandwich mislead customers into believing it contains pork rib meat, a federal judge has ruled.
The dispute adds the McRib to a list of McDonald’s products that have become the subject of courtroom battles, including Chicken McNuggets, french fries, and its coffee.
Why Is McDonald’s Being Sued Over the McRib?
Four customers filed the lawsuit against McDonald’s Corporation in December 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The complaint alleges that the company deliberately gives the McRib patty ridges so that it looks like a proper rack of ribs. "Despite its name and distinctive shape—its meat patty has been deliberately crafted to resemble a rack of pork ribs—the McRib does not contain any actual pork rib meat at all," the lawsuit states.
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The plaintiffs claim that the sandwich uses less expensive pork products, including "inter alia, pork shoulder, heart, tripe, and scalded stomach," and that customers paid a premium price for it because they believed they were buying rib meat.
The company’s published ingredient list describes the patty as containing pork, water, salt, dextrose, and rosemary extract. Its website calls the product "seasoned boneless pork," but doesn’t identify "rib meat" as a specific ingredient.
On October 30, U.S. District Judge April Perry rejected McDonald’s attempt to dismiss the entire case. Perry said it was too early to accept the company’s argument that no reasonable consumer would believe the McRib contained rib meat.
"Plaintiffs’ proffered understanding of ‘McRib’ is not unreasonable or fanciful," Perry wrote.
The judge dismissed some claims but allowed consumer-deception, fraud, and unjust-enrichment claims to proceed. The ruling doesn’t mean that McDonald’s has been found liable, though. The plaintiffs must still produce evidence supporting their allegations.
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McDonald’s denied that the McRib contains heart, tripe, or stomach and said it has been transparent about the sandwich’s ingredients.
"This lawsuit distorts the facts and the claims are meritless," the company said in a statement. It argued that the preference of some customers for a particular cut of pork doesn’t turn its marketing into consumer fraud.
Newsweek has contacted McDonald's about the McRib case for comment.
Chicken McNugget Burn Case
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In another case involving McDonald’s food, a Florida jury awarded $800,000 to a girl who was burned by a hot Chicken McNugget.
According to the original complaint, Philana Holmes bought a six-piece Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal for her 4-year-old daughter from a drive-thru in Tamarac, Florida, on August 21, 2019. One of the nuggets became trapped against the child’s thigh and caused a burn. Her parents sued McDonald’s USA and franchisee Upchurch Foods.
The May 2023 verdict shows that jurors found Upchurch Foods negligent and concluded that it had failed to provide reasonable instructions or warnings about foreseeable risks. Jurors didn’t find McDonald’s USA negligent, but did find that the company failed to provide adequate instructions or warnings.
A separate jury later awarded $800,000, divided equally between damages for the previous four years and future damages. The family had initially sought $15 million.
The McDonald’s Hot-Coffee Case
The nugget lawsuit is similar to the case brought by Stella Liebeck, who was 79 when she suffered severe burns after spilling McDonald’s coffee on herself in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1992.
Liebeck was sitting in a parked car when the coffee spilled as she attempted to remove the cup’s lid. She suffered third-degree burns and required hospitalization, skin grafts, and further medical treatment.
In 1994, a jury found McDonald’s liable while also assigning Liebeck 20 percent of the responsibility. Jurors awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages, reduced to $160,000 because of her share of fault, and $2.7 million in punitive damages. The trial judge later reduced the punitive award to $480,000.
The parties subsequently reached a confidential settlement while the case was being appealed, meaning the amount Liebeck ultimately received was never publicly disclosed.
Beef Flavoring in McDonald’s French Fries
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McDonald’s also encountered legal trouble over the ingredients used in its french fries, and other potato products such as hash browns, after customers learned that beef-derived flavoring was used during production.
The company announced in 1990 that its U.S. restaurants would stop cooking fries in beef fat and use vegetable oil instead. However, beef flavoring continued to be included in the potatoes during processing.
Vegetarian and Hindu customers filed lawsuits alleging that they’d been misled. The distinction was particularly significant for Hindus, many of whom don’t eat beef for religious reasons.
In 2002, McDonald’s agreed to settle the litigation for $10 million, with money distributed to vegetarian, Hindu, Sikh, and other organizations. The company also issued an apology, admitting that the information it had provided had been confusing.
The settlement didn’t go to trial. Instead, McDonald’s agreed to improve disclosures and create an advisory panel addressing vegetarian and other dietary concerns.
The McRib case is still at a much earlier stage. Unlike the nugget case, it hasn’t reached a jury, and unlike the fries and coffee disputes, it hasn’t produced a settlement.
The latest ruling establishes that the central allegations are only plausible enough to proceed, leaving the plaintiffs to prove that the McRib’s name and rib-like appearance would mislead a reasonable consumer.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton and Trevor Davies
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