January 17, 2006
Those Are Good Burgers, Boyd.
In early January, Richard Boyd, In-N-Out Burgers’ vice president and a board member, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against the 23-year-old heir to the company, Lynsi Martinez, and corporate executives. Boyd, one of two trustees, claims that he is the lone impediment to an attempt by Martinez to engineer a coup and install new managers who would expand the chain too quickly. Boyd also accused Martinez and other executives of attempting to wrongly fire Boyd from his In-N-Out and trustee positions.
Last week, In-N-Out filed a lawsuit against Boyd accusing him of fraud and embezzlement. In-N-Out alleges that Boyd diverted construction materials and crews to his own property and charged the work to the company. It also alleges that Boyd gave business to a favored contractor without competitive bidding and overpaid for construction services then ordered the destruction of documents to hide his activities.