A McDonalds branch in the Frisian town of Lemmer acted wrongly when it fired an employee for giving a customer one slice of cheese for free, a court in the city of Leeuwarden has found.

The McDonalds waitress sold a hamburger to a colleague who then asked for the cheese, which the waitress added to the meal. This turned the hamburger into a cheeseburger, the fastfood chain argued, so the waitress should have charged more for it. She was fired because giving free cheese was against the house rules, McDonalds said. But the court said that firing an employee for such a small breach was out of proportion, and annulled the discharge.

The judge also pointed out that McDonalds refused to hear the waitress's side of the story, and that no steps were taken against the colleague who bought the cheese-enriched burger.

McDonalds has been sentenced to paying the fired waitress five monthly salaries, covering the period until the original end of the woman's temporary contract.

© Radio Netherlands Worldwide