From Fox News

As Chipotle is grappling with lawsuits stemming from E. coli and norovirus outbreaks at several of its restaurants, the Mexican chain is facing another legal challenge—this time over charges of sex discrimination.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that three former female general managers have filed a discrimination suit in Cincinnati federal court against the chain.

The lawsuit claims that the women were routinely discriminated against and wrongfully terminated by a male supervisor despite high evaluations.

Plaintiffs Stephanie Ochoa and Tina Reynolds both said they’d either been promoted or had earned high praise from their supervisors just months before being fired and replaced by a male employee. Tina Rodgers, the third plaintiff, alleges that she was fired in retaliation for taking maternity leave, in violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act.

According to the lawsuit, Herman Mobbs, the former Cincinnati area manager who the three women reported to told one of the plaintiffs that “there sure are a lot of overweight women working here.” On another occasion, he told one of the women, “you’re too emotional.”

After citing a slew of negative evaluations written namely by Mobbs against the plaintiffs, Mowry said, “These women were terminated because they did not meet the basic standards of restaurant management.”

The trial began Monday, with the plaintiffs’ and defendants’ lawyers giving opening statements to the jury of three men and five women and is expected to last about two weeks.

Earlier this month, Chipotle was sued for allegedly misleading investors about its food safety controls. It’s also under a criminal investigation over a norovirus outbreak at one of its California stores.

The chain’s sales have tanked since an E. coli outbreak that came to light at the end of October.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

IMAGE: Chipotle’s latest legal challenge comes from three former female general managers who have filed a discrimination suit against the chain. (AP)

For more on this story go to: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2016/01/28/chipotle-latest-lawsuit-has-nothing-to-do-with-e-coli/

Related story:

Chipotle Sued For Not Disclosing Food Quality Control Problems To Stockholders

By Laura Northrup From Consumerist

Customers don’t trust fast-casual Mexican-ish restaurant Chipotle very much right now, after a series of foodborne illness outbreaks in different parts of the country. The outbreaks of e. Coli, Salmonella, and norovirus were unrelated to each other, but demonstrated problems with the chain’s food-handling procedures. Now an investor has filed a lawsuit on behalf of shareholders who bought stock in the company in the lsat year, claiming that the company should have known about the problems with its food handling processes, and disclosed them.

The company’s food safety woes have undermined customers’ confidence in the chain, and sales are down 30%, according to Chipotle’s most recent quarterly report. That has hurt the company’s share price, making the value of customers’ investments fall even further than their sales–down 35% as of Friday afternoon.

According to Reuters, the lawsuit claims that the burrito chain hurt investors by failing to let them know that “quality controls were inadequate to safeguard consumer and employee health,” something that its own management evidently didn’t know. While the eatery has changed its cooking and chopping procedures since the outbreak, it hasn’t yet regained the public’s trust despite the company founder and co-CEO going on a national media apology tour.

All that was needed to cause an outbreak of the massively contagious norovirus in Boston was for one manager to not force a sick employee to go home. The food safety failures may have been chain-wide, or may have been caused by one person somewhere in the company failing to do his or her job just one time. All its victims know is that the company’s “food with integrity” slogan is rather hollow when you’re in gastrointestinal distress.

The company declined to comment to Reuters about the lawsuit.

IMAGE: (JeepersMedia)

For more on this story go to: http://consumerist.com/2016/01/08/chipotle-sued-for-not-disclosing-food-quality-control-problems-to-stockholders/