McDonald's is still litigating its Delaware lawsuit against Easterbrook, filed last year as a challenge to that severance agreement. McDonald's argues in that case Easterbrook would have left the company on more stringent terms if the board had known at the time information later leaked by an anonymous source, revealing Easterbrook's relationships with employees were more numerous and serious than he indicated during the investigation.

The new complaint was filed by Blake Bennett of Cooch and Taylor and Geoffrey Johnson and Jing-Li Yu of Scott+Scott, who declined to comment on the case Thursday morning. The complaint states shareholder Phyllis Gianotti's attorneys have been investigating the McDonald's board's oversight process for issues involving sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation for over a year.

"There is no basis for any derivative claim," a McDonald's spokesperson said. "The board has acted in accordance with McDonald's values and will continue to do so, supporting the company's efforts to ensure fair opportunity for employees, franchisees and suppliers."

Morgan Lewis is accused of taking Easterbrook's word that all relevant information about what he said was one employee relationship could be found in text messages on his phone, opting not to look at his emails. As a well-known firm, it should have taken into account that its investigation would likely play a big role in the board's determining how to use McDonald's assets in Easterbrook's termination deal.

"Despite this knowledge and expertise, Morgan Lewis conducted a grossly inadequate investigation, and thus presented to the board an incomplete picture of the extent of wrongdoing by the CEO. Moreover, Morgan Lewis rushed through the investigation in eight days or less," Bennett wrote in the complaint. "Furthermore, less than a year later, Morgan Lewis again conducted an investigation—this time taking less than two weeks—on complaints of wrongdoing by Easterbrook, and was able to discover extensive documentary evidence hiding in plain sight, on the company's servers, of Easterbrook's other instances of wrongdoing. Morgan Lewis's ability to uncover this information rapidly further shows how inadequate its first investigation was, since the information located on company servers could easily have been found based on the most cursory of earlier searches."

A representative with Morgan Lewis was not immediately available for comment on the allegations Thursday morning.

In addition to McDonald's and Morgan Lewis, Easterbrook, current CEO Christopher Kempczinski, nine McDonald's board members and two executives during the time McDonald's made its agreement with Easterbrook are named as defendants.

The new lawsuit claims the fast food giant's flaws were not limited to just Easterbrook's alleged misconduct, with the company consciously de-prioritizing racial diversity in recent years and keeping in place an ineffective system of looking into complaints. The compliant said the board having no direct oversight and much of the responsibility falling to the CEO.

"Despite numerous lawsuits implicating CEO misconduct—including the lawsuit the company filed against Easterbrook—the board has kept in place this reporting structure," the complaint states. "At an October 2020 meeting, almost a year after Easterbrook was terminated and after the board commenced litigation against him for misleading them as to the extent of his misconduct, the board was presented with the same risk management system as in 2019."

Easterbrook is represented in the earlier filed case by Daniel Herr, who did not respond for comment on whether he will do so in the new case. McDonald's has not yet named representation, but is represented by Ross Aronstam & Moritz in its case against Easterbrook.