What a lot of people get wrong about the 1994 McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
Also, though maybe not important in this article, was the logic behind the jury's award. They placed the award at 2 days worth of McD's nationwide coffee sales.
But I am glad that they did mention the other 700+ suits filed against McDs, but they should have gone into a little more depth about how McDs used its extensive legal department to squash those complaints. A practice that still continues today.
Edit: And for more interesting reads, check out the Stella Awards site. Now defunct, it was devoted to finding really stupid law suits, and debunking urban legend law suits. The quoted aim was to show that there is a real issue with US law suits, that doesn't need fake "I microwaved my poodle because the instructions didn't let me know that was bad" to let people know there is an issue.
I teach lawyers English, and one of my more fun classes is mixing up a bunch of true and fake lawsuits and watching them try to figure out which is which.
Pro-Tip: The more ridiculous sounding ones are actually real.
Case in point - a couple who lost their 2 year old in a lawnmower accident at day care found out that the day care only had a $100K insurance policy. So they dropped the case against the day care center and sued the manufacturer of the lawn mower.
There was a safety feature that was invented 16 years after the mower was built that the mower didn't have. No recall statement or after action was specified by authorities. The jury awarded the couple a $2M award.
McDonald's judged that injuring people and pounding them with lawyers was more cost effective than customers not having hot coffee after they drove to the office.
McDonalds got off lightly.
It's not the volume of product sold that matters. It's the damages that one product can have in one specific case.
And besides, if they really had a case, they should have appealed rather than settled and then re-litigate it in the court of public opinion. Winning a case is always a stronger argument than trying to prove you were right afterwards.
Again, if they felt they would have won, they should have appealed.
On the other hand, coffee is hot. Coffee aficionados might quibble on the proper temperature for coffee --but the temp McDonald's served the coffee was not "wrong".
So, I could see them found guilty of providing an inadequate vessel for the coffee .. but she burnt herself trying to open the cup and adding sweetener, or something to that effect. How is that the company's fault?
Granted, if you see one of your customers accidentally hurt themselves, the humane thing is to help them --but how was McD guilty of contributing to her injury when we all recognize coffee is a hot substance. When you make it at home you know you are not to allow it to spill over yourself. I mean, I get that McD was callous in not wanting to pay her bill. I agree they were callous but how were they at fault for her injury?
There are many things which are intrinsically unsafe but we mostly operate safely around such things: gasoline, razor blades, knives, medicines, etc.
Is it believed servers should allow coffee to cool down to a safe temperature before tendering the drink?
190 degrees is not at all drinkable (though perfect for out of the brewer) and McDonalds had already received complaints about it being too hot.
The complaints may or may not be relevant, I think because you will have people complain it's not hot enough, or too hot, etc. and in terms of proportion to servings served it was a miniscule percentage. Never the less we all know from experience when we brew at home that coffee is hot. We know to be careful around the stove or range.
No, just a warning label.
I have no idea if that's true, but I suspect not.
A lot of people apparently like coffee hot, so they can take it to work or wherever and it's not luke-warm 30 minutes later. I'm not one of them, but that doesn't mean this apparently popular product variant should no longer be offered by any vendor. It's not like McDonald's has an effective monopoly on serving coffee ...
So I agree McD was callous and unsympathetic. I also think they should have looked after their customer... But I still find the argument that McDs was at fault a bit unsettling because we all know that coffee is intrinsically hot. It's not something you gulp down. It gets sipped for a reason.
Companies changed their behavior after the lawsuit. Now they serve coffee hot, but not scaldingly hot.
You might as well serve cups of 10 M HCl. It doesn't matter how well you label it as "CAUTION! Strong acid! Do not ingest or touch!" because eventually, everything in a restaurant will get spilled. Logically, you would either serve it diluted to 0.1 M instead, and then keep an open can of baking soda within easy reach, or you would sock something away for the victims' compensation fund every time you sold a cup.
Everything spills in a restaurant. Everything. No exceptions. You absolutely cannot predicate your business strategy on the assumption that one particular thing will never get spilled on a customer. Every engineer knows Murphy's Law, and every last one could have predicted that serving 190 degF coffee will produce a nonzero quantity of hospitalizations.
Brew at whatever temperature you need. But don't let any human near it until the liquid cools to a safer temperature.
1. McDonald's knew or should have know that their temperature could cause third degree burns.
2. McDonald's received complaints and did nothing. They did not even put a warning label on the menu.
3. Because there was no warning label, plaintiff did not know she could receive serious injury which may have impacted her decision to not buy it.
You can make the argument that just because there was a warning label doesn't mean she would have read it.
But on the contrary, if the warning label is not there, she has no chance to read it.
I know that the coffee I come into contact with on a daily basis is cool enough, in a 2-minute walk from the machine to my desk, to poke a finger into it without being burned (momentary exposure is uncomfortable, but doesn't result in injury).
Consulting a burn chart [1], I've got to assume that it's a temperature somewhat under 160 degrees by that time. From a coworker's experience, at that point you can dump it on yourself and end up with 1st and 2nd degree burns, rather than the 3rd degree burns from McDonald's coffee. Still, by any reasonable measure, the coffee is certainly "hot".
The problem here isn't accuracy, it's precision. "Hot" might mean > 100F/38C. Or it might mean > 200F/93C. If a temperature isn't specified, you're likely to make a judgement based on the past experiences that inform your intuition.
It follows that a company selling a product, without providing more precise information about its properties, should provide it in a state that matches a reasonable customer's intuition of what they're buying. I don't think that's an unsettling concept. I think it's one that most people would take as a given.
[1] https://www.armstronginternational.com/files/products/valves...
Let say I prepared my own coffee at home -and let's say I made it scalding not expecting to have to drink it till I got to the office 5 minutes later... but as I step out my door someone runs by and knocks the coffee out of my hand and spills it onto themselves and me ... Am I at fault, is anyone?
To make a more obvious case, a hotpot restaurant. You cannot get around having a very hot plate. Accidents will happen. People get burned. Should we close them down or else ensure the plates are not sizzling?
She was served coffee, they got in a car and drove a few minutes, the car pulled over and she burnt herself so severely she needed several surgeries and her life was at risk.
I suspect that most coffee made at home would be at a lower temperature after the same length of time. Mostly because mugs and metal teaspoons conduct heat better, and people use chilled milk, and mugs don't have lids.
And while we all know "coffee is hot" we don't expect it to cause life threatening injury. That's the thing that really bugs me about this case, is that people don't understand just how serious full thickness burns are.
In England if you get a full thickness burn, especially on any joints or the face or neck or genital regions you make your way to your nearest A&E department or MIU, and that hospital then transfers you, by ambulance, to a more specialist burns unit.
Having been inside several burns units (Bristol Frenchay; Salisbury; Birmingham Selly Oak; and Chelsea & Westminster) I know they're not fucking around when it comes to burns.
> but how were they at fault for her injury?
Several safety organisations had called for coffee to be served at a reduced temperature. That's still too hot to drink, and will still cause burns. It just reduces the risk of severe burns. McDonalds decided to ignore that request to reduce temperature.
And no-one is asking them to stop serving extra hot coffee. They just asking them to only serve it on request.
Then there's the angle of why they did this. Disclaimer: I haven't sourced this, so maybe I'm mistaken, feel free to verify this info. It's been pointed out that McDs benefited from serving coffee hot enough that customers were unlikely to be able to consume it before leaving the store. They were using free refills as a marketing technique and someone figured out that the hotter you served the coffee, the less free coffee was given out, while presumably still getting most of the benefit of offering it. This explains why they wouldn't lower the temperature when told it was unsafe, and also why it makes sense to hit them with a large cash penalty, to counter the financial incentive to continue unsafe but profitable practices until you get caught.
That is how I end up looking at this kind of lawsuit. You can't regulate every single potentially unsafe idea anyone can have. But having a flexible system that makes the risks of getting sued outweigh the financial benefit of potentially unsafe but lucrative practices means we get an overall safer environment, because it aligns the best interests of consumers with the best interests of the big companies.
This is the first bit of dialogue from the site's video:
HOST: "What do you think of the movie?"
FIGLEY: "I saw it as propaganda. Well done propaganda... But, propaganda."
https://whoislookup.ninja/whois/hotcoffeetruth.com
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Domain Administrator
Registrant Organization: Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America
Registrant Street: 1615 H Street NW,
Registrant City: Washington
Registrant State/Province: DC
Registrant Postal Code: 20062
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.2026596000
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: @uschamber.com
I agree there was a lot of bad reporting on this case, and there are a lot of misconceptions about the case, but I attribute it to bad media than anything else.
Edit: Looking at their arguments in each episode: 1. Intros and general reactions and opinions. No direct argument here.
2. Definition of tort in the film was incorrect, missing the phrase civil harm. This is myopic as the film does go on to explain plenty of complexities around tort law: negligence, strict liability, punitive damages, etc.
3. The 700 complaints vs. billions of cups of coffee sold.
4. Damage caps: the film portrays damages caps as common when they are rare.
5. Judicial Elections: a) money doesn't only flow from corporations, b) most judges will be fair regardless of how they were elected, only a few 'bad apples'
6. Mandatory arbitration, Franken Amendment: a) amendment didn't change Jones case b) most arbitration is not around tort claims.
Overall I think it's surprising that all panelists are in agreement on each issue. :-)
edit: the message that I replied too got heavily edited after the fact.
I edited my comment to include the episodes arguments. I'll post my thoughts here:
3. The documentary does cover McDonalds scale and the fact that they received the same complaint at various levels within the corporate offices (not just franchises) but did nothing. Even a single instance has grounds for a tort case if McDonalds knew about the problem but did nothing.
4. This dances around the issue. Nebraska does have damage caps and those caps are on real damages. The panelists even say that this case is "tragic". Not sure what more to say...
5. This is simply Citizen's United vs. FEC a few years earlier. We probably disagree on this decision. :-) But the film does bring up cases where there is an appearance of influence thanks to donations.
6. Again dances around the issue. Regardless of whether the Franken amendment covers the Jones case, they fail to discuss the problems with mandatory arbitration which is what the documentary finds to be the most troubling aspect of these agreements.
None of these 'arguments' really address the concerns that the film raises. The panel nitpicks on definitions, complains that the film 'missies the point' because these are rare cases [citation needed], etc.
And again, everyone is in agreement on the panel, which usually indicates that the panel was poorly chosen, at least if you want an good presentation of different viewpoints.
Source (wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau... (in "aftermath" section)
Or what about if I sell you coffee at the lower temperatures McDonald's now sells coffee at, and you spill it over a newborn's delicate skin causing severe damage.
Please help me understand the other side of the story.
MCD here was routinely serving it at 180-190.
This will probably be downvoted too, but, golly gee, I'm just trying to have an open mind here and seeing if someone can convince me that MCD should be at fault. A hot product is hot and inherently carries those sorts of risks. Yes, it was hotter than it needed to be. I get that. So what? How is it some sort of gross negligence? (That's a real question, not rhetorical--I don't understand. 180-190 is not out-of-this world hot, but yes, is extra hot compared to 160 degree coffee).
My newborn example in the grandparent post still applies if served at a cooler temperature. They'll get burned right away. And for adults? The temperature coffee is served at all coffee shops everywhere can be inherently dangerous and cause 3rd degree burns (see page 3 http://www.ameriburn.org/Preven/ScaldInjuryEducator%27sGuide...). While people may not understand the specific number of seconds required, they get the gist--be careful with hot liquids.
- MCD served coffee at up to 190 degrees
- they had 700 previous reports of burns
- MCD claimed customers wanted it served hot
Those are the precious few facts we have about the product from the article. I'm aware of other facts of the case not covered in the article (business reasons MCD chose to serve at that temp and such), but it still doesn't connect A to B; why serving coffee extra hot (at a temp you can get at Starbucks if you request it) should mean MCD is liable for burn injuries if you take the lid off and spill it on yourself. Do you get where I'm coming from?
Now think about stairs. A certain athletic performance is needed to rapidly descend stairs. Get it wrong and you can tumble a long way onto concrete. Life-changing injuries are just one slip away.
It should also be clarified, it was not 700 previous reports of burns, it was 700 previous lawsuits. That implies that there were far more burns and spills that did not result in lawsuits. On your part though, the lack of infamy implies there were plenty of cases that were settled or where the judge agreed with McDonalds.
In the Too Much Coffee Man comic (if you'll forgive getting some info from a comic) others have posted: http://www.tmcm.com/tmcm/mcdonalds-coffee-lawsuit/ It's important to note the emotionally offensive arguments that were made by McDonalds, that actually helped tilt the case over to Stella Liebeck's side. Mainly, I expect, that she was asking for too much money because she was so old that she wouldn't get much more use out of her ahem parts. The awarding of punitive damages, I expect had to do with the 700 previous lawsuits which resulted in no change in behaviour.
Spilling a bit of coffee, especially when the cup is at its fullest and hottest, especially when in the cramped confines of a vehicle, is a common enough occurrence that I don't consider it unreasonable that McDonalds should have taken earlier action.
The Starbucks approach also highlights the liability - because you must request that temperature, it can more reasonably be claimed that you should know to take extra precaution. Certainly, it can't be claimed that you didn't know just how hot it was going to be.
For what it's worth, I've had to revise a little just how clear cut this is. But I still feel that the legal system was working as intended, that this lawsuit doesn't deserve its frivolous reputation, and that it's important for ordinary citizens to have these methods of recourse against giant corporations.
Your explanation is "the injuries were so bad and McDonald's was so mean" but that should not be a legal justification.
Oh, so the woman was being reasonable, just wanted McDonald's to pay her medical bills - no, that's not reasonable either. I can't buy $1 bag of candy and then get my dentistry bills paid by the manufacturer, even if it was "closer to 100% sugar than is reasonable". Yeah, no metaphor will be exactly the same, but the situation is clear. Here's another one: someone buys a kitchen knife, and then cuts off their finger. Manufacturer has to pay? I'm sure some people in this vast country have said "man these knives are way too sharp" while the manufacturer says "our customers want the knives to be sharp".
McDonald's sold coffee near the boiling point. It was not defective or misleading. Something very unfortunate happened. And here in America someone has to pay for it! But that's not actually fair. If you really want this unfortunate woman to have her medical expenses paid for, have your government give her the money, sharing in the expense via your taxes.
I've declined to explain it. Do not project your straw man arguments onto me.