If you order chicken, you expect chicken.

If you order a coffee, you expect a coffee.

But if you order butter, is margarine or a vegetable spread an acceptable substitute?

It wasn’t to Jan Polanik, who sued 23 Dunkin’ Donuts locations in Massachusetts for serving him “margarine or a butter substitute” instead of butter with his bagels between June 2012 and June 2016. He filed a pair of class-action lawsuits in March against franchise owners who are responsible for multiple stores. He paid 25 cents for butter and was not told a substitute was used, according to the suits.

If settlement agreements filed on Monday are approved, up to 1,400 people may claim up to three free buttered muffins, bagels or other baked goods from the 23 locations in Grafton, Leominster, Lowell, Millbury, Shrewsbury, Westborough and Worcester. Customers would not need to show a receipt of a previous purchase. The stores will be required to use only butter — no margarine or butter substitute — for a year. If they use butter substitutes in the future, the menus will have to explicitly say so.

Mr. Polanik, who lives in the Worcester area, will receive $500 as an “incentive award” for representing the class.