December 14, 2011

The first issue of The GPMemorandum was dated December 19, 1997. Today we publish Issue 150. To mark this milestone edition, we preview here a series of articles we will bring to you next year during our fifteenth year of publication. The series of articles will provide a bit of perspective on what has happened with the most important topics in franchise law since we celebrated the tenth anniversary of The GPMemorandum four years ago.

In Issue 101, published in December of 2007, we set forth a list of what we viewed as the ten most important of the 700 cases we had summarized for our franchisor clients and friends in our first ten years and 100 editions of The GPMemorandum. Those cases, and the issues they presented, were as follows:

  1. Broussard v. Meineke Discount Muffler Shops (1998) (class actions, ad fund administration, fiduciary duty)
  2. U.S. v. Days Inns of America (1998) (Americans with Disabilities Act)
  3. McDonald’s v. Robertson (1998) (contract defenses to post-termination injunction under federal trademark law)
  4. Collins v. International Dairy Queen (1994-2000) (antitrust challenge to system supply practices, arbitration clause as bar to class action)
  5. Burger King v. Weaver (1999) (encroachment, duty of good faith)
  6. Dunkin’ Donuts, Inc. v. Priya Enterprises (2000) (enforcement by franchisor of system standards and other franchise agreement provisions, at the franchisees’ expense)
  7. Wu v. Dunkin’ Donuts (2001) (vicarious liability)
  8. Pelman v. McDonald’s Corporation (2005) (obesity)
  9. Nagrampa v. MailCoups (2006) (arbitration clause “unconscionable”)
  10. Radisson Hotels v. Majestic Towers (2007) (liquidated damages to the franchisor)

In the more than 500 additional cases summarized since that Tenth Anniversary Issue, we have seen a mixture of important developments on some topics and the noticeable absence of additional cases on other topics. Over the next year, we will highlight how the cases above have been followed or not, and how the issues they considered have developed since then. As always, we welcome your feedback on this endeavor.