Somewhere around 1994, a woman on the Lower East Side of Manhattan walked into a Burger King, ordered a large Coke, and paid 89 cents. That’s it. That’s the moment everything went sideways. Because she found out the Burger King two blocks away was selling the exact same drink for 69 cents. And instead of shrugging it off, muttering something under her breath, and moving on with her day like the rest of us would, she sued. Over 20 cents.
This actually happened. And the story only gets better from there.
The Case Of The 20-Cent Coke
Here’s what we know. This woman noticed two Burger King locations within a couple blocks of each other in Lower Manhattan were charging different prices for a large soda. One charged 89 cents. The other charged 69 cents. She went to the more expensive one and, upon learning about the price gap, asked for the cheaper price. They said no. So she went to small claims court.
Her argument? She shouldn’t have been forced to walk two extra blocks to save 20 cents. The inconvenience of walking — in New York City, a place where people walk literally everywhere — was apparently worth taking legal action. She didn’t just want her 20 cents back, either. She sought $100 in damages. For the walking. Two blocks of walking.
We only know about this case because a father and son came forward to The New York Post in 2014, roughly 20 years after the fact. The father worked in the New York court system at the time and happened to be in Manhattan’s Small Claims Court when this woman showed up. He asked her what the case was about, and she told him straight-faced that she’d had to walk two extra blocks.
Burger King Didn’t Even Bother Showing Up
This is the part that really gets me. Burger King won the case. That alone isn’t surprising — the lawsuit was absurd. What’s surprising is that Burger King didn’t even send anyone to court. No lawyer. No franchise manager. No regional representative reading from a binder. Nobody.
In small claims court, not showing up usually means you lose by default. If someone sues you for $100 and you don’t appear, the judge will typically side with the person who actually bothered to be there. But in this case, the judge apparently looked at the complaint, looked at the empty chair where Burger King’s representative would’ve sat, and still decided this wasn’t worth a dime. The woman walked away with nothing.
For context, $100 in 1994 would be about $222 today when you adjust for inflation. That’s what she thought two blocks of walking was worth. To put it another way, $100 in 1994 could have covered roughly two weeks of grocery staples for a family of four. Over a soda that cost less than a dollar.
Why Burger King Prices Are Different Everywhere
Here’s the thing — the woman wasn’t wrong that two Burger King locations were charging different prices. She was wrong about that being illegal or unfair in any legal sense. Fast food chains have always done this. Most locations are franchises, meaning individual owners operate them and set their own prices based on rent, labor costs, and local competition. A Burger King in midtown Manhattan is going to charge more than one in rural Ohio. That’s just how it works.
And this hasn’t changed. Reddit users have pointed out price differences across Burger King locations where the same burger goes for $1.39 at one spot and $1.69 at another. Nobody’s suing over it anymore (as far as we know), but it still annoys people. The difference is most of us just grumble about it and order anyway.
A Pennsylvania Couple Sued Burger King Over $17
The 20-cent woman wasn’t even the only person to take Burger King to court over pocket change. In November 2015, Doug and Patty Wargo of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, sued Burger King for $17.35. The restaurant got Patty’s order wrong, charged her again for the correct one, then voided the first charge and promised a refund within 7 to 10 business days. The refund never came.
So the Wargos filed suit. Not just for the $17.35, but also for the $113.90 court filing fee. Doug told ABC 27 that people go to jail for stealing less than that, and he wasn’t wrong. The funny part? After they filed the lawsuit, the refund magically appeared on their card. But by then the couple was out the filing fee, and they weren’t about to eat that cost. They kept the case going for the $113.90.
Patty said she was the type to follow up. Doug said it was about principle. They also said they’d never eat at that Burger King again — or any Burger King, for that matter. All over $17 and a company that couldn’t process a refund on time.
The Burger King Employee Who Got Fired Over 50 Cents Of Food
While we’re talking about Burger King and absurdly small amounts of money in courtrooms, there’s the case of Usha Ram. She was a 55-year-old cook who had worked at Burger King for 24 years. One day she forgot her wallet and asked her manager if she could take some food at the end of her shift. She thought the answer was yes. Her manager later said she’d only approved a fish sandwich — not the fries and soda Ram also grabbed.
The total loss to Burger King? Fifty cents. Ram was suspended in December 2013 and fired in January 2014. After 24 years. Over what was apparently a miscommunication about fries.
Ram took the case to court and won. Justice Lisa Warren awarded her $21,000 in lost wages and $25,000 in aggravated damages — $46,000 total. The court ruled that firing a longtime employee with an excellent record over 50 cents was wildly disproportionate. Which, yeah. That tracks.
The Man Who Sued McDonald’s Because Value Meals Cost More Than Ordering Separately
Burger King doesn’t have a monopoly on tiny-amount lawsuits. McDonald’s has caught its share too. In 2016, James Gertie of Des Plaines, Illinois, noticed his $5.90 value meal actually cost 41 cents more than if he’d ordered every item separately. He sued, calling it consumer fraud and deceptive practices. Two years later, Kelly Killeen of Chicago had the same complaint — her Extra Value Meal was $5.08, but ordering each item individually would’ve been $4.97.
These cases feel different from the 20-cent soda lawsuit because they point at something real. A “value meal” that costs more than ordering à la carte is, at minimum, a misleading name. Whether it’s worth a lawsuit is another question, but at least the math checks out.
The Whopper Size Lawsuit That’s Still Going
If you think the 20-cent case is petty, the current class action against Burger King makes it look quaint. Filed in March 2020, this lawsuit accuses Burger King of making its Whoppers look roughly 35% bigger in advertisements than what you actually get. The promotional images show massive patties with ingredients spilling over the bun. What arrives in the bag is, according to the plaintiffs, a distinctly different product.
In May 2025, District Judge Roy Altman ruled the lawsuit could move forward, finding the claims went beyond normal advertising exaggeration. Burger King has argued that food styling is standard industry practice and that the same patties used in ads are the ones served in stores. The case is now focused on in-store advertising specifically, with claims about TV and online ads getting dismissed. Plaintiffs from Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and other states are all part of the action.
An intellectual property expert compared the case to when Red Bull got sued for claiming its drink would “give you wings.” Red Bull settled that one for a pile of money, despite the obvious absurdity. When it comes to food advertising, courts seem willing to let juries decide where the line falls between creative license and flat-out lying.
The Lawsuit That Started It All
You can’t talk about fast food lawsuits without mentioning Stella Liebeck. In 1992, the 79-year-old woman from Albuquerque spilled McDonald’s coffee on her lap while sitting in a parked car. She suffered third-degree burns. The jury awarded her $160,000 in medical expenses and $2.7 million in punitive damages, though a judge later reduced the amount and the two sides settled privately.
People made fun of that case for years. It became shorthand for frivolous lawsuits. But the photos of her burns tell a completely different story — this was a legitimate injury caused by coffee heated to dangerous temperatures. The Liebeck case cracked the door open for consumers to hold fast food companies accountable. Everything that came after, from the 20-cent soda suit to the Whopper size complaint, followed in its wake.
What All These Cases Have In Common
Americans love suing fast food restaurants. Some of these cases are legitimate. Some are not. The woman who sued over 20 cents lost and probably deserved to. The Wargos who sued over $17 had a fair point about getting their money back. Usha Ram absolutely deserved her $46,000 after getting fired over fries. And the Whopper size case? A federal judge thinks it has enough merit to go to trial.
The thread connecting all of them is that regular people feel like they’re getting ripped off by massive corporations, and small claims court is sometimes the only tool they’ve got. Whether the amount is 20 cents or $17 or 35% of a burger patty, the frustration is the same. The system just doesn’t always agree it’s worth fighting about.
