A woman went from fast food to life in the fast lane -- and she says its all McDonald’s fault.
Shelley Lynn is claiming that the fast food giant should have protected her against her ex-husband and former boss Keith Handley, who hired her to work the counter twenty years ago, according to Courtroom News.
Lynn, who is suing Handley, his restaurant company Ivernia and McDonald’s in California Central District Court, said that she was at the mercy of a company that provided no protections for female employees against predatory bosses.
The trouble began in 1982 when Handley hired her to work at the counter in Arroyo Grande, California. The two began dating in 1985, but things got rocky when she lost her job.
Lynn says that Handley, who still runs the franchise, forced her termination to make her more vulnerable to his demands.
“McDonald's had no policy in place whereby Lynn could have filed a grievance against Handley, Ivernia, and McDonald's,” she said in the filed court documents.
Lynn, who was down on her luck, said Handley lied when he said help her fulfill her dreams of working as a Las Vegas dancer.
He bought her a home in Vegas to live in, but then told her she’d have to get a job as a prostitute in one of the legal brothels to pay for it.
“Handley then began pressuring Lynn on an almost daily basis, arguing . . . it was no big deal to engage in sex to make money, that she would lose her home and everything she had, which was true,” according to the complaint.
Lynn said she took a job at the Chicken Ranch in Nevada, where she became a “top booker,” required to sleep with up to 12 men in a single night.
Lynn and Handley wed in 1988, but soon divorced.
She says Handley should never have been allowed to open his franchise and that McDonald's “failed to conduct a due diligence into the moral character of Handley when it sold franchises to him.”
She also says McDonald's “failed to properly supervise and train Handley,” who she accuses of running his pimping operations out of the McDonald's franchises he owned, according to the complaint.
Lynn seeks lost wages, special damages, compensatory damages and punitive damages for sex trafficking, negligent retention and supervision of franchisees, and racketeering.
Handley could not be reached for comment.
