Boyd v. City of Kenosha: Court Lets Civil Rights Claims Against Applebee’s Franchisor Survive Despite Implausible Theory of Control

September 2, 2025 | U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin | Slip Opinion

Executive Summary

In an unpublished decision, Magistrate Judge William E. Duffin of the Eastern District of Wisconsin denied a motion to dismiss civil rights and defamation claims against Dine Brands Global, Inc., the franchisor of Applebee’s Grill + Bar®. Plaintiff Shanya Boyd, joined by her minor child, alleged she was falsely reported as a criminal suspect while dining at an Applebee’s franchise in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Dine Brands argued it could not be vicariously liable for the acts of a franchisee’s manager. Boyd countered that Dine Brands’ training and operational standards created control sufficient to support liability. The court held that, at the pleading stage, Boyd alleged enough facts to survive dismissal, leaving open whether Dine Brands actually exercised control.

Relevant Background

According to the complaint, Boyd, her child, and the child’s father were dining at a Kenosha Applebee’s when a nearby hit-and-run occurred. The suspects allegedly fled into the restaurant’s restroom. Police initially cleared Boyd and her family, but the Applebee’s manager allegedly called police to report them as suspects because of their race. Boyd claims this false report led to her arrest, excessive force, and defamation. She sued multiple defendants, including the City of Kenosha, police officers, and Dine Brands, which moved to dismiss the claims against it.

Boyd’s operative complaint alleged violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and Wisconsin defamation law. Dine Brands argued that franchisors are not liable absent day-to-day control over franchise operations, and that Boyd failed to plead such control.

Decision

The court denied Dine Brands’ motion to dismiss, applying Wisconsin’s current standard for vicarious liability in the franchisor context. In Kerl v. Dennis Rasmussen, Inc., 682 N.W.2d 328 (Wis. 2004), the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the key question is “whether the franchisor controls the ‘specific instrumentality’ which allegedly caused the harm, or whether the franchisor has a right of control over the alleged negligent activity”. A franchisor may face liability if it has a “right to control the daily conduct or operation of the particular ‘instrumentality’ or aspect of the franchisee’s business that is alleged to have caused the harm”.

Boyd’s complaint alleged that Dine Brands’ franchise agreement “impose[d] detailed requirements on training concerning interactions with law enforcement and concerning treatment of customers” and that these materials prescribed “how the Applebee’s employees should interact with law enforcement and customers like the Plaintiffs”. The court emphasized that Boyd did not rely merely on supervisory authority but on specific operational control over employee interactions.

Judge Duffin concluded that these allegations “make it plausible that Dine Brands may have had a ‘right to control the daily conduct or operation’ of the Applebee’s employees’ interactions with law enforcement and customers”. Whether such control was exercised in fact could not be resolved at the motion-to-dismiss stage. As a result, the § 1981 and defamation claims against Dine Brands survived.

Looking Forward

The court’s ruling illustrates just how low the bar can be for plaintiffs to survive a motion to dismiss in the franchisor context. It is difficult to imagine any franchisor drafting training materials that encourage—or even tolerate—racial discrimination, let alone instruct franchisee employees to enlist law enforcement to forcibly remove customers. Yet the court accepted allegations that generic training requirements on customer service and law enforcement interactions could be read as franchisor “control” sufficient to support liability at the pleadings stage.

For franchisors, this case underscores the importance of precision. Materials designed to protect the brand and ensure positive customer experiences may still be recast by plaintiffs as directives over employee conduct. While this decision does not establish liability, it shows how a plaintiff can stretch ordinary training language into a theory of franchisor control.

Practical steps include:

• Keeping training focused on brand consistency and guest experience while avoiding prescriptive instructions on how employees must handle law enforcement or other third-party interactions.
• Using clear disclaimers that franchisees alone are responsible for employment practices, discipline, and customer disputes.
• Recognizing that courts may allow claims to proceed based on allegations alone, meaning discovery battles can be unavoidable even where franchisor liability is implausible.

Although Dine Brands has not been found liable—and the allegations should not support liability in the end—this order highlights how plaintiffs continue to test the boundaries of joint employer theories in the franchise context.

Thomas O’Connell is a Shareholder at Buchalter APC and Chair of the firm’s Franchise Practice Group. For questions about this article or media inquiries, you can contact Tom at toconnell@buchalter.com.

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