McDonald’s franchisee agrees to pay $4.4M after manager sexually assaulted teen
A franchisee of fast-food giant McDonald’s has agreed to pay a teenage girl $4.4 million to settle her lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by a Pittsburgh-area restaurant manager who was a registered sex offender, the victim’s attorneys announced Monday.
The deal between the girl, who was 14 at the time of the 2021 assault, and McDonald’s franchisee Rice Enterprises LLC, compensates her for the attack by Walter A. Garner in the restaurant’s bathroom.
At the time, Garner, now 44, had served a prison sentence and was listed on the Megan’s Law website for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl.
Garner pleaded guilty in 2021 to statutory assault, indecent assault and other charges for the McDonald’s attack and is serving state prison time. A message seeking comment was left Monday for the public defenders who represented him in that case and in the 2003 case that was resolved with a guilty plea to aggravated indecent assault and other charges.
The lawsuit led to a strike by workers in 12 U.S. cities in October 2021, an effort to get the company to better respond to what they describe as an ongoing problem of sexual harassment and violence in McDonald’s stores.
Through a McDonald’s spokesperson, Rice Enterprises said it fired Garner as soon as they learned of the allegations against him in 2021.
“We have since redoubled our efforts to ensure a positive and respectful experience for all associates in our restaurants, and our organization has a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of any kind,” Rice Enterprises said in the emailed statement . The company said it is putting new employees through “safe and respectful workplace training” and has improved security.
The employee was 14 when she started working at a McDonald’s in Bethel Park in October 2020. She said she had no training on sexual harassment or how to report it. According to the lawsuit, Garner made sexual comments to her and touched her inappropriately before the bathroom assault in mid-February 2021.
Garner was arrested in April 2021 after another McDonald’s employee told administrators at her school about his behavior and police were called, the lawsuit said.
Attorney Alan Perer, who is representing the girl and her parents in the civil lawsuit in Allegheny County, says he wonders how a sex offender was hired to mentor high school-age girls.
“When a company gives a known sex offender access to and control over young teens, America’s best first job turns into a nightmare for those teens,” Perer said in a news release.
McDonald’s USA called the girl’s sexual assault deeply disturbing and issued a statement saying violence and sexual harassment are completely unacceptable. The company said it is committed to providing franchisees with training resources to help prevent harassment.