Why One Woman Sued Burger King Over 20 Cents

Have you ever had a hankering for a Whopper with cheese, reached into your pocket only to find loose change, and wondered, "Does Burger King offer flexible pricing?" Burger King is notably inexpensive, thanks in part to value meals and special deals. But if a customer wanted to pay $0.20 less for a Coke because they saw the reduced price at another nearby Burger King location, would that fly? Back in the '90s, a New York City woman found herself in this exact situation. She was denied the reduced-price drink, which led her to sue the fast food chain. She argued she shouldn't have been forced to travel the extra distance for the $0.20 savings.

The incident likely took place around 1994. Details emerged in 2014 when a father and son recalled to The New York Post that they witnessed the proceeding in Manhattan's Small Claims court about 20 years prior. The woman entered a Burger King on the Lower East Side, where a Coke cost $0.89, even though another location just a few blocks away was selling the same drink for $0.69. The father who was present that day worked in the New York court system. When he asked the woman why she was suing, he claimed she replied, "Well, I had to walk two extra blocks." She sought $100 in damages, but it never came. Burger King won the case without a representative even appearing in person.

When the Burger King Coke controversy took place around 1994, the $100 in damages could have purchased about two weeks' worth of grocery staples for a family of four. (Adjusted for inflation, the $100 would amount to $222 today.) But the New York woman wasn't the only customer to go after the fast food chain, and others sought even less in damages. In 2020, a Pennsylvania couple sued Burger King for less than $20 after the restaurant charged them double for their meal. In 2022, Burger King's sandwiches became the subject of another lawsuit, this time a class-action case including 19 individuals and 13 states claiming the chain's advertisements inflated the burger sizes and misled the public. As of this writing, the case is ongoing.

Meanwhile, Burger King continues to display discrepancies in pricing. One Reddit user pointed out the cost of a burger increased from $1.39 to $1.69 after they changed their location in the B.K. mobile app while trying to order. They questioned if the app could be malfunctioning, writing, "I get that prices would vary from state to state, but we're talking about two restaurants only 25 minutes away from each other in the same county..."