While consumers appreciate the convenience of food delivery services like Grubhub, these apps are often costly and inefficient for the restaurants on their platforms. In fact, some restaurant owners claim that Grubhub has engaged in unfair business practices.
In October 2020, two well-known restaurants filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Grubhub added their names, logos and ordering information to the app without permission, notification or authorization.
Details of the suit
The class action lawsuit, filed by Antonia’s Restaurant in North Carolina and The Farmer’s Wife in California, alleges that Grubhub placed more than 150,000 restaurants on its platform without permission in the United States. The attorneys for the restaurants bringing the lawsuit claim that these actions prevented their clients from controlling their own delivery services. The business owners also claim that when their full menu, name and logo appears on Grubhub, their restaurant’s reputation is at risk. Grubhub has allegedly refused to remove restaurant listings and openly shared these actions with the company’s shareholders.
Legal recourse against Grubhub
If your restaurant has experienced financial injury after misrepresentation or other fraudulent actions by a third-party delivery service, you may have legal recourse. Some of the business torts that may apply to this type of case include:
- Theft of intellectual property by reprinting the company’s trademarks and menu without authorization
- Untrue statements about a business, such as that a restaurant has knowingly partnered with Grubhub
- Interference with another company’s business operations, such as the disruption of a restaurant’s internal delivery process
Depending on the type of lawsuit you wish to file, the statute of limitations may range from two to eight years.
