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The $2.7m McDonald's hot coffee judgement

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basilio

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I' m pretty sure almost everyone has heard of the $2.7million McDonalds hot coffee law suit.

The bare bones of the story are that a women bought a cup of coffee from McDonalds and it spilt in her lap. She ended up suing McDonalds and was awarded $2.7 million.

The case is probably one of the most widely known and talked about legal stories around.

So. What do people on this forum know/believe about the case ? What are your thoughts now about the legal system ? The jury that awarded these damages ? The media that reported the case ? The person who was burnt ?

Just interested ...
 
basilio said:
What do people on this forum know/believe about the case ? .
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As someone who is passionate about coffee, I know/believe that MacDonalds should be sued for calling their dishwater 'coffee'.
 
I'm going to reply before i look it up so you get my laymen s position on it. I had a discussion of the litigious society the US has last weekend.

It didn't surprise me when i heard the story/myth. Their medical care is so expensive because the courts award these crazy judgements, someone has to pay for the insurance and its passed on to the patient.. Their lawyers are just groomed to go after the big payouts and really they're likely the only ones who benefit. Australia and Canada really have much more reasonable settlements. There needs to be a balance..

Liability settlements should be enough to compensate the victim and make the defendant think twice about doing it again or preventing the injury from happening again wherever possible...

Now i'll go look it up and see if i come up with a different opinion once i learn the facts...
 
galumay said:
As someone who is passionate about coffee, I know/believe that MacDonalds should be sued for calling their dishwater 'coffee'.
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This site allegedly gives the "facts", believe it or not.

https://www.ttla.com/index.cfm?pg=McDonaldsCoffeeCaseFacts

If true, MacDonalds is grossly negligent imo serving coffee that hot, given that accidents happen, and McDonalds has been sued before for the same offence.

Apparently, even paying out $3 million hasn't changed their practice.
 
Having read the article i can see why you've asked the question Bas...i'll refrain mentioning anything more until a few people respond...

Hopefully others will respond on what they know at the time of reading your post rather than looking it up...
 
The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages, reduced to $160,000 because she was deemed to have been 20 percent at fault. Liebeck also was awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages, about two days' sales of coffee by McDonald's, although the judge ultimately reduced that amount to $480,000.

She originally wanted to settle for $20,000 but Maccas declined the offer.

My view is that accidents happen but unfortunately we live in a very litigious society whereby just about anyone can bring legal demands onto another for their own stupidity.

 
It must be the 20 year anniversary of this case this year. Fairly certain it was 1994. She died about 10 years after this happened I believe in her early 90s.

The Stella Awards (which was her surname) are dedicated to finding court decisions on circumstances just as outrageous as her case.

http://www.stellaawards.com/stella.html

This is a summary of the case with all of the court facts. It doesn't seem as absurd after you have read through them as to why she took them to court. The whole area of negligence can be incredibly grey.

Her injuries were horrific. Two years of rehab and treatment.

By the way, the jury assessed $2.7m in damages, but the judge reduced this to $640k, comprised of $480,000 punitive damages and $160,000 for compensation. Apparently on top of this there was another confidential settlement amount (to avoid an appeal case?) if I understand correctly which was obviously never released to the public.
 
Thanks for the responses and in particular Can Oz for picking up why I was raising the subject in the way I did.

TS outlined a number of the more salient points of the story - the original request by the women which was to simply cover her medical costs (rejected twice by McDonalds) the fact that in the end the final payout was far less than the reported $2.7m, the reasons behind the jury's judgment.

DB also noted just how horrific the injuries were. They was unbelievably ugly.

Just for interest check out following video which outlines the case in detail.

I'm still interested in peoples responses before they see the story and if/how their thoughts have changed.

Cheers

http://www.upworthy.com/ever-hear-a...n-herself-at-mcdonalds-then-sued-for-millions
 
Why did the cup split in her lap?

Was it because the cup was damaged?
Was it because it wasn't rated to the temperature of the coffee?
Was it due to damage inflicted after the coffee was dispensed and the customer had taken ownership?

If it was after the customer had taken ownership, why hadn't other cups split?

It wouldn't be the first time in history, that self harm has been done, in order to obtain financial gain. I'm not saying that is the case but I have heard of that being done.

I know it sounds heartless, but in a dog eat dog society like the U.S, it would appear to be a viable option.

The U.S doesn't have a welfare system like ours, therefore litigation for financial gain seems to be prevalent.

Once our welfare system is weighed down to the point of being unaffordable, we will adopt the same model.

Just keep funding the unaffordable, untill you can't fund the basics. Because you've run out of money.lol
 
sptrawler said:
Just keep funding the unaffordable, untill you can't fund the basics. Because you've run out of money.lol
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McDonalds could well afford the payout. They could have got off with $20,000, but they were greedy. Tough luck to them.
 


Possibly it's due to evolution not giving us brains to know that hot things can burn you or eyes to prevent us from being clumsy and tripping over things. :dunno:
 

It would be worth seeing the video I referred to to answer your questions.

Paper cups are fragile and unstable. There is always a risk of spillage. The coffee was scalding hot. the temperature was such that contact with skin would cause immediate severe burns.

McDonalds knew the coffee was very hot. That was their policy.

There had been over 700 complaints made to Mcdonalds about burns caused by spills from hot coffee. This wasn't a one off incident.

As I said worth seeing the the whole story.
 
This can be summed up with these two question

1. When does a person have a responsibility to look after their own safety?
2. When should another entity be responsible for another persons safety?

Where you lay blame will depend on your answers to those questions. You can argue McDonalds should have known better and provided better safety/warning or you can argue that it's common sense that a hot liquid can cause severe burns so be extremely careful with it and don't open it where you can spill it on yourself.


My personal belief is that no-one should be held directly accountable for someone else's stupidity. Blame and compensation from an individual/company should only be given when an injury occurs through negligence, incompetence or with fraud/malicious intent. I do feel that the society overall has to be compassionate and should take responsibility for healthcare, recovery and/or disability support of the person.
 
Interesting. I had heard of the case but never actually read up on it.

Trentb said:
My personal belief is that no-one should be held directly accountable for someone else's stupidity.
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What element could be described as "stupidity"? The company owes a duty of care to its customer. This isn't ambulance chasing it's the foundation of the tort of negligence. It seems somewhat obvious to me that if you are going to serve something that if spilt or even consumed in the normal way can cause 3rd degree burns you have a responsibility to make your customer aware of the danger, especially given where customers may be consuming it. Compounding that is that McD's knew of the dangers but chose to ignore them (which in itself has shades of Ford Pinto).

Seems a fair judgement.
 

One of the points of this case was that even if the coffee was used as intended, ie drunk, it would be so hot as to cause burns to the mouth & tongue, and was therefore not in a fit state to be served. The company (imo) could be seen to be negligent in that it provided a product that was not safe for the normal use of the product.

Although you can't say the company was malicious, it seems to be a case of gross negligence without thought for the outcomes.
 

Ok, fair point but what if they lowered the temperature and got too many complaints from the people that handled it carefully, only to drink it later when it was the perfect temperature, i.e. we they got to thier office etc...
 
CanOz said:
Ok, fair point but what if they lowered the temperature and got too many complaints from the people that handled it carefully, only to drink it later when it was the perfect temperature, i.e. we they got to thier office etc...
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All they need to do is market it as "ready to drink" and let the customer get an instant fix.
 
CanOz said:
Ok, fair point but what if they lowered the temperature and got too many complaints from the people that handled it carefully, only to drink it later when it was the perfect temperature, i.e. we they got to thier office etc...
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Just put a warning on it that the contents are extremely hot and can cause severe burns. There is nothing wrong with selling something at that temperature as long as the customer is warned of the danger.
 
McLovin said:
Just put a warning on it that the contents are extremely hot and can cause severe burns. There is nothing wrong with selling something at that temperature as long as the customer is warned of the danger.
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It seems that this is all that is necessary to avoid a lawsuit now the dust (or coffee in this case) has settled.

 
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