A woman is suing McDonald’s after claiming she was seduced by an advert for a cheeseburger which forced her to break her vegetarianism.
Russian Ksenia Ovchinnikova has filed a lawsuit against the fast food giant because she was unable to resist a promotion during Lent.
The devout Christian had decided to give up meat for the 40 days before Easter and claims McDonald’s marketing made this impossible.
While walking through the city centre of Omsk during Lent 2019, she saw a promotion for cheeseburgers and McNuggets.
After not eating any meat for around a month, she said she was powerless to resist any longer and promptly devoured a cheeseburger, later regretting it.
She’s seeking compensation for just RUB 1,000, the equivalent of £10, according to local media.
Her statement claims: ‘At this point, the promotion had been running for about a month. After I saw the ad, I couldn’t help myself, I visited McDonald’s and bought a cheeseburger.
‘I see a violation of the law on consumer protection. I have asked the court to investigate and, if a violation has taken place, to force McDonald’s to compensate me for moral damages amounting to RUB 1,000.’
Zamoskvoretsky Court in Russia has confirmed that it has received her lawsuit.
‘The court received a claim from Ksenia Ovchinnikova, the defendant of which is McDonald’s’, the court told Tass News in a statement.
‘Currently, the date of the preliminary hearing on this claim has not yet been set,’ the court added.
Before the promotion, Ms Ovchinnikova claimed she had successfully fasted over Lent for 16 years.
She claims McDonald’s and others shouldn’t be allowed to advertise during Lent, while Christians are attempting to abstain.
But a spokesperson for the Bishop of Moscow – known as the Patriarchate – has urged the woman to ‘go to confession instead of court’ over the incident.
