Attorney files objection over who’s getting money in non-halal McDonald’s settlement

The attorney who threw a monkey wrench into the settlement over non-halal chicken being served at a McDonald’s in east Dearborn has filed an objection to the settlement.

Majed Moughni, who lives and practices law in Dearborn, filed it Friday.

Monday is the deadline for hand-delivered objections; the deadline for mailed objections has passed. A final settlement conference is scheduled for 10 a.m. April 17 before Wayne County Circuit Judge Kathleen Macdonald.

Finley’s Management Co., which owns the McDonald’s at 13158 Ford Road, and McDonald’s Corp. agreed to pay $700,000 to settle a class action lawsuit brought by Dearborn Heights resident Ahmed Ahmed on Nov. 23, 2011.

According to the suit, the restaurant served non-halal chicken when it ran out of halal chicken, and it didn’t tell customers of the switch. “Halal” refers to meeting Islamic requirements to preparing food. God’s name must be invoked before an animal providing meat for consumption is slaughtered.

Macdonald ruled Jan. 18 that Ahmed was to get about $20,000; his attorneys from the Jaafar & Mahdi Law Group in Dearborn were to get about $230,000; the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn was to get about $150,000; and the Health Unit on Davison Avenue Inc. in Detroit, also known as HUDA, was to get about $274,000.

Moughni wrote in his objection that the proposed settlement is “unfair, unreasonable and inadequate,” and that HUDA and the museum are nonclass members that shouldn’t get settlement money because they are not charities that target class members.

He wrote that HUDA, near the Davison and Lodge freeways in Detroit, does not serve Dearborn, where the restaurant is and where many of the class members live. He wrote that the museum, 13624 Michigan Ave., has nothing to do with “halal.”

He proposed giving the money to a charity that meets the “next best” standard, like the Dearborn Public Schools, which serves almost all of Dearborn and the part of Dearborn Heights where Ahmed lives.

Another objection was filed March 20 by attorney Iris Rubin on behalf of Aqil Al-Eisa, Azhar Alghazawi and their two minor children because the settlement doesn’t give money to class members.

According to the original settlement, HUDA was selected because it has a diverse patient base, including from Muslim communities. It operates three days a week and provides free medical, optical and dental services, the settlement said. The museum was chosen because it can use the money for free tours for student groups, free admission on designated days, free writing workshops and financial rewards, and recognition for creative writing or research projects.

The original settlement was disrupted by Moughni, who posted his displeasure on Dearborn Area Community Members, a Facebook page he’s administered since November 2009. He asked page members who ate the haram, or forbidden, chicken to leave contact information for themselves and others who ate the meat, even though he wasn’t involved in the case to that point.

Ahmed’s lead attorney, Kassem Dakhlallah, filed a motion for injunctive relief against Moughni on Jan. 31, which Macdonald granted Feb. 7. She ordered Moughni to remove previous information about the case from the page; put her original class action settlement order and her order against him on the page; and give her a list of those who responded and “liked” the entry, including their contact information and what they wrote. Moughni complied.

He also was barred from communicating about the case without prior written permission from Macdonald and Jaafar & Mahdi Law Group, and she threatened in the order to refer Moughni to the state Attorney Grievance Commission.

Moughni filed a motion Feb. 15 for Macdonald to overturn her order; she denied the motion Feb. 22. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Citizens Litigation Group of Washington, D.C., threw their support behind Moughni, saying his free-speech rights were violated.

McDonald’s filed a motion to ungag Moughni, and Macdonald ruled March 11 that denying the motion was a moot point because she granted the company’s request to extend the settlement response period to April 8 because of the confusion created by the controversy. Feb. 18 was the initial response deadline; the initial final settlement hearing was to be on March 1.

A campaign to boycott the Ford Road McDonald’s was announced recently on Dearborn Area Community Members, and Moughni said it has had more views than any other subject in the page’s history.

The original proposed settlement notice is at www.jaafarandmahdi.com, and the firm also has the notice in Arabic and Bengali. Those with questions can call the firm’s office at 1-313-846-6400.

Those who object to the proposed settlement, wish to intervene or want to opt out of the settlement class can hand-deliver a written request by Monday to Macdonald’s courtroom on the 11th floor of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, 2 Woodward Ave. at Jefferson Avenue, Detroit. Those who made a submission by Feb. 18 don’t have to respond again.

The suit covers anyone who ate the non-halal chicken at two McDonald’s in the city’s east end — 13158 Ford Road and 14860 Michigan Ave. — since Sept. 1, 2005. They are believed to be the only McDonald’s in the country to serve halal chicken.

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