Plaintiff seeks damages from defendant McDonalds Corporation for injuries that she suffered when she bit into a

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Plaintiff seeks damages from defendant McDonald’s Corporation for injuries that she suffered when she bit into a heart-shaped sapphire stone while eating a Big Mac sandwich that she had purchased at a McDonald’s restaurant in Tigard. The trial court granted summary judgment to defendant on the ground that it did not own or operate the restaurant; rather, the owner and operator was a nonparty, 3K Restaurants (3K), that held a franchise from defendant. Plaintiff appeals, and we reverse.

   Most of the relevant facts are not in dispute. * * * 3K owned and operated the restaurant under a License Agreement (the Agreement) with defendant that required it to operate in a manner consistent with the ‘‘McDonald’s System.’’ The Agreement described that system as including proprietary rights in trade names, service marks and trade marks, as well as ‘‘designs and color schemes for restaurant buildings, signs, equipment layouts, formulas and specifications for certain food products, methods of inventory and operation control, bookkeeping and accounting, and manuals covering business practices and policies.’’ 

   The manuals contain ‘‘detailed information relating to operation of the Restaurant,’’ including food formulas and specifications, methods of inventory control, bookkeeping procedures, business practices, and other management, advertising, and personnel policies. 3K, as the licensee, agreed to adopt and exclusively use the formulas, methods, and policies contained in the manuals, including any subsequent modifications, and to use only advertising and promotional materials that defendant either provided or approved in advance in writing.

   The Agreement described the way in which 3K was to operate the restaurant in considerable detail. It expressly required 3K to operate in compliance with defendant’s prescribed standards, policies, practices, and procedures, including serving only food and beverage products that defendant designated. 3K had to follow defendant’s specifications and blueprints for the equipment and layout of the restaurant, including adopting subsequent reasonable changes that defendant made, and to maintain the restaurant building in compliance with defendant’s standards. 3K could not make any changes in the basic design of the building without defendant’s approval.

   The Agreement required 3K to keep the restaurant open during the hours that defendant prescribed, including maintaining adequate supplies and employing adequate personnel to operate at maximum capacity and efficiency during those hours. 3K also had to keep the restaurant similar in appearance to all other McDonald’s restaurants. 3K’s employees had to wear McDonald’s uniforms, to have a neat and clean appearance, and to provide competent and courteous service. 3K could use only containers and other packaging that bore McDonald’s trademarks. The ingredients for the foods and beverages had to meet defendant’s standards, and 3K had to use ‘‘only those methods of food handling and preparation that [defendant] may designate from time to time.’’ In order to obtain the franchise, 3K had to represent that the franchisee had worked at a McDonald’s restaurant; the Agreement did not distinguish in this respect between a company-run or a franchised restaurant. The manuals gave further details that expanded on many of these requirements.

   In order to ensure conformity with the standards described in the Agreement, defendant periodically sent field consultants to the restaurant to inspect its operations. 3K trained its employees in accordance with defendant’s materials and recommendations and sent some of them to training programs that defendant administered. Failure to comply with the agreed standards could result in loss of the franchise.

   Despite these detailed instructions, the Agreement provided that 3K was not an agent of defendant for any purpose. Rather, it was an independent contractor and was responsible for all obligations and liabilities, including claims based on injury, illness, or death, directly or indirectly resulting from the operation of the restaurant.

   Plaintiff went to the restaurant under the assumption that defendant owned, controlled, and managed it. So far as she could tell, the restaurant’s appearance was similar to that of other McDonald’s restaurants that she had patronized. Nothing disclosed to her that any entity other than defendant was involved in its operation. The only signs that were visible and obvious to the public had the name ‘‘McDonald’s,’’ the employees wore uniforms with McDonald’s insignia, and the menu was the same that plaintiff had seen in other McDonald’s restaurants. The general appearance of the restaurant and the food products that it sold were similar to the restaurants and products that plaintiff had seen in national print and television advertising that defendant had run. To the best of plaintiff’s knowledge, only McDonald’s sells Big Mac hamburgers.

***

   Under these facts, 3K would be directly liable for any injuries that plaintiff suffered as a result of the restaurant’s negligence. The issue on summary judgment is whether there is evidence that would permit a jury to find defendant vicariously liable for those injuries because of its relationship with 3K. Plaintiff asserts two theories of vicarious liability, actual agency and apparent agency. We hold that there is sufficient evidence to raise a jury issue under both theories. We first discuss actual agency.

   The kind of actual agency relationship that would make defendant vicariously liable for 3K’s negligence requires that defendant have the right to control the method by which 3K performed its obligations under the Agreement. The common context for that test is a normal master-servant (or employer-employee) relationship. [Citations.] The relationship between two business entities is not precisely an employment relationship, but the Oregon Supreme Court, in common with most if not all other courts that have considered the issue, has applied the right to control test for vicarious liability in that context as well. [Citation.] We therefore apply that test to this case.

***

   A number of other courts have applied the right to control test to a franchise relationship. The Delaware Supreme Court, in [citation], stated the test as it applies to that context:

If, in practical effect, the franchise agreement goes beyond the stage of setting standards, and allocates to the franchisor the right to exercise control over the daily operations of the franchise, an agency relationship exists. [Citation.]

*** 

   * * * we believe that a jury could find that defendant retained sufficient control over 3K’s daily operations that an actual agency relationship existed. The Agreement did not simply set standards that 3K had to meet. Rather, it required 3K to use the precise methods that defendant established, both in the Agreement and in the detailed manuals that the Agreement incorporated. Those methods included the ways in which 3K was to handle and prepare food. Defendant enforced the use of those methods by regularly sending inspectors and by its retained power to cancel the Agreement. That evidence would support a finding that defendant had the right to control the way in which 3K performed at least food handling and preparation. In her complaint, plaintiff alleges that 3K’s deficiencies in those functions resulted in the sapphire being in the Big Mac and thereby caused her injuries. * * *

   Plaintiff next asserts that defendant is vicariously liable for 3K’s alleged negligence because 3K was defendant’s apparent agent. The relevant standard is in Restatement (Second) of Agency, § 267, which we adopted in [citation]:

One who represents that another is his servant or other agent and thereby causes a third person justifiably to rely upon the care or skill of such apparent agent is subject to liability to the third person for harm caused by the lack of care or skill of the one appearing to be a servant or other agent as if he were such. [Citation.]

   We have not applied § 267 to a franchisor/franchisee situation, but courts in a number of other jurisdictions have done so in ways that we find instructive. In most cases the courts have found that there was a jury issue of apparent agency. The crucial issues are whether the putative principal held the third party out as an agent and whether the plaintiff relied on that holding out.

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   In this case * * * there is an issue of fact about whether defendant held 3K out as its agent. Everything about the appearance and operation of the Tigard McDonald’s identified it with defendant and with the common image for all McDonald’s restaurants that defendant has worked to create through national advertising, common signs and uniforms, common menus, common appearance, and common standards. The possible existence of a sign identifying 3K as the operator does not alter the conclusion that there is an issue of apparent agency for the jury. There are issues of fact of whether that sign was sufficiently visible to the public, in light of plaintiff’s apparent failure to see it, and of whether one sign by itself is sufficient to remove the impression that defendant created through all of the other indicia of its control that it, and 3K under the requirements that defendant imposed, presented to the public.

   Defendant does not seriously dispute that a jury could find that it held 3K out as its agent. Rather, it argues that there is insufficient evidence that plaintiff justifiably relied on that holding out. It argues that it is not sufficient for her to prove that she went to the Tigard McDonald’s because it was a McDonald’s restaurant. Rather, she also had to prove that she went to it because she believed that McDonald’s Corporation operated both it and the other McDonald’s restaurants that she had previously patronized. * * *

***

   * * * in this case plaintiff testified that she relied on the general reputation of McDonald’s in patronizing the Tigard restaurant and in her expectation of the quality of the food and service that she would receive. Especially in light of defendant’s efforts to create a public perception of a common McDonald’s system at all McDonald’s restaurants, whoever operated them, a jury could find that plaintiff’s reliance was objectively reasonable. The trial court erred in granting summary judgment on the apparent agency theory.

  Reversed and remanded. 

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Smith and Roberson Business Law

ISBN: 978-0538473637

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Authors: Richard A. Mann, Barry S. Roberts

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