An attorney in the city is upset that those who ate chicken that was labeled as halal, but really wasn’t, won’t be sharing in the $700,000 awarded in a lawsuit.
McDonald’s and Finley’s Management Co. agreed Jan. 18 to pay the money over the non-halal chicken, which was served at the McDonald’s at 13158 Ford Road.
Ahmed Ahmed of Dearborn Heights filed the lawsuit in September 2011 after finding that the chicken wasn’t halal, which means that it didn’t meet Islamic requirements for preparing food.
Ahmed is expected to get $20,000, the Huda Clinic in Detroit is expected to get about $275,000, about $150,000 is expected to go to the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn and about $230,000 is expected to go to attorneys. The exact amounts will be determined at a hearing.
Attorney Majed Moughni, who runs the Facebook site Dearborn Area Community Members, has started a campaign to have the money paid to those who ate the “haram” chicken, not those he said were not “injured.” He’s asking those who did to “like” the entry and leave contact information for themselves and others who ate the meat.
As of late Thursday afternoon, the campaign had nearly 700 “likes,” nearly 600 comments and 60 “shares.”
Moughni said in an email that the community is “showing its outrage over the sale of false halal chicken sandwiches.”
For food to meet the halal standard of preparation, God’s name must be invoked before an animal providing meat for consumption is slaughtered. Islam forbids the consumption of pork.
Two of the four McDonald’s in the city advertise that they sell halal Chicken McNuggets and McChicken sandwiches, meaning that they have to get the meat from an approved halal provider. The other restaurant, at 14860 Michigan Ave., was not involved in the suit.
Ahmed’s attorney, Kassem Dakhlallah, told The Associated Press that there was no evidence of problems in production, but the Ford Road location sold non-halal chicken when it ran out of halal. Ahmed and Dakhlallah investigated the matter and sent a letter to McDonald’s Corp. and Finley’s Management Co., the franchisee, but didn’t get a response, so they filed a lawsuit as part of a class action in November 2011.
Dakhlallah told The AP that since it would be impossible to determine who ate haram chicken at the restaurant, both sides agreed to give money to community-based charities.