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Comment by steveklabnik | Hacker News Reader

The hot coffee lawsuit is the first thing I think of here. Heck even the name is like… whew.

I guess "the dangerously hot coffee that fused a customer's labia" does not have the same punch when trying to argue for tort reform.

That's a myth within a myth. The coffee was industry standard temperature, they still serve coffee that hot today (Wikipedia says as much.) The lawsuit was justified though, because the cup design was defective. It shouldn't have collapsed like it did.

That doesn't seem to match what's in wikipedia:

> Liebeck's attorneys argued that coffee should never be served hotter than 140 °F (60 °C), and that a number of other establishments served coffee at a substantially lower temperature than McDonald's. The attorneys presented evidence that coffee they had tested all over the city was served at a temperature at least 20 °F (11 °C) lower than McDonald's coffee.

Reading through wikipedia's discussion of the trial and verdict, it sounds like the case hinged entirely on the temperature of the coffee being unusually high, and not the cup design.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau...

It's strange that despite the research showing that most customers intend to consume the coffee immediately and despite this lawsuit and, apparently, others, McDonald's and other establishments continue to serve coffee at such a high temperature. Every time I buy a hot drink (admittedly, not that often) I can't actually drink it for several minutes.

Of course the plaintiffs attorney argued coffee should be lower temperature - it literally was their case.

And no, there is no coffee professional (organization, individual, whatever) brewing coffee at 140*F.

Additionally - 140*F water is still going to burn if you spill it all over your clothing. Lastly, the customer removed the lid of the coffee while between her legs, which is how the cup was crushed and coffee ran all over her.

The case was absurd...

The issue was the temperature it was served at, not the temperature it was brewed at...

Nobody is saying the coffee should be brewed at a lower temperature.

That's not an industry standard either though. With a lot of equipment it would be technically impossible, because the pre-heated brew water is what's keeping the standing coffee hot.

The case was not absurd. Even if you think they should be fine to serve it at such a high temperature, she just wanted them to pay $20,000 for her medical bills, but McDonald's used it as a way to cast absurdity onto supposed tort abuse and it worked with most of the population still saying things like "you can even sue someone if you spill your own coffee".

> it worked with most of the population still saying things like "you can even sue someone if you spill your own coffee".

I don't understand how what you wrote gels with the grandparents comment of:

> Lastly, the customer removed the lid of the coffee while between her legs, which is how the cup was crushed and coffee ran all over her.

You stopped reading too soon:

> Since Liebeck, McDonald's has not reduced the service temperature of its coffee. McDonald's current policy is to serve coffee at 176–194 °F (80–90 °C) [...] Similarly, as of 2004, Starbucks sells coffee at 175–185 °F (79–85 °C), and the executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America reported that the standard serving temperature is 160–185 °F (71–85 °C).[citation needed]

Any of this coffee can give you life changing injuries. That's why it is important that it be served in sturdy cups with safety warnings.

> The coffee was industry standard temperature, they still serve coffee that hot today (Wikipedia says as much.)

Which is probably too hot. See "A Review of Hot Beverage Temperatures—Satisfying Consumer Preference and Safety":

* https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1750-38...

Why? All this debate on how hot you like to drink your coffee etc. is completely irrelevant.

You don't chug your coffee on your way from the counter. You probably have some other items that you consume before you even start sipping on the coffee.

If someone serves me coffee at the perfect consumption temperature I'm going to be annoyed that it is way too cold and it is for sure going to be disgustingly cold at the time I actually consume it.

The correct temperature is supposed to be way too warm for consumption. Then you can sip at it while it is still too warm to drink comfortably while you "wait" until it is at your preferred consumption temperature (which varies wildly due to personal preference).

> You don't chug your coffee on your way from the counter. You probably have some other items that you consume before you even start sipping on the coffee.

The same article says McDonald's own research showed the opposite.

What article? Seems quite unlikely given that it apparently is too hot to do the opposite anyway.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Rest...

> McDonald's claimed that the reason for serving such hot coffee in its drive-through windows was that those who purchased the coffee typically were commuters who wanted to drive a distance with the coffee; the high initial temperature would keep the coffee hot during the trip.[12] However, it came to light that McDonald's had carried out research finding that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving.[22]

The [22] source doesn't say anything about that research. But a commuter is a very specific customer and hardly represents all customers.

Further, I'm guessing but doubt that commuters wouldn't go to mcd just for coffee, whatever breakfast(?) maybe didn't last long enough for it to cool down. Sure, but that all depends.

And apparently, commuters didn't mind enough to find something else.

Part from safety issues I haven't really seen any convincing argument against "too hot" coffee.

Isn’t a commuter the typical customer buying coffee at a drive-through?

I would even go as far as to say that among commuters buying coffee mostly consist of commuters buying coffee. Maybe they have other customers too?

And come to think of it, you won't buy a coffee (at a drive-through!) when you are one minute away from your destination.

You most certainly have time to let it cool down and enjoy it at your preferred temperature. Even if you intend to consume it as soon as possible.

> You don't chug your coffee on your way from the counter. You probably have some other items that you consume before you even start sipping on the coffee.

See Table 5, which includes "After dilution or cooling".

Well, whatever the case - the coffee was hot enough to cause severe burns.

Why would anyone think it is OK to serve a drink so hot that it can cause severe burns?

Do you apply this standard to tea, which is generally prepared and served much hotter than 140 F (with the understanding that you wait until it cools down to drink)?

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/food-features/t...

yes

Oh. Cool, I didn't think that reductio was going to be that easy!

In any case, here's the facts: when I make coffee at home, it is brewed at 200ish F. That is true. When I make tea tho it's like 170ishf. By the time I am ready to consume (post brewing) both are still not, but consumable, so I think it is safe to say that they won't burn me, at least very badly, if spilled on me.

And if you served them to a guest, right after preparing for yourself, it will be before it’s cooled down enough to drink. That doesn’t make it your fault if they spill it on themselves and fuse their labia.

And it doesn’t make the grossness of the accident into prima facia evidence of the culpability of any one party up the line, as it’s always presented in these discussions.

They don't brew the coffee as it is served. They keep the coffee at a super high temp for whatever reason, but they don't have to.

I can’t speak for the other guy but I don’t pour tea for myself or others until it’s cooled down considerably, and also in this scenario we’re not giving the guest the beverage in a paper cup they’re meant to consume in their car.

We're not talking about idiosyncratic special cases here, we're talking about the norm. That's why I provided a citation rather than building a case off of a particular individual's routine. From the link:

"Black and oolong teas are generally steeped in hot or boiling water (about 210º F) and brewed for about 4-5 minutes. Green tea is steeped at a slightly lower temperature 180º F from 4-15 minutes. The longer tea steeps, the stronger the flavor with bitter notes."

And I don't think anyone recommends you put hot beverages in your crotch area.

OK but that tells me nothing about serving? Do you expect a plate of pasta to be served in boiling water?

It also seems clear to me that one should take into account that someone is having the drink in the car and not at the table if you’re operating a drive-through restaurant.

For reference, your Keurig pours coffee into your cup at 192*F. McDonald's coffee wasn't even this hot when that lawsuit happen.

Additionally - the detail often left out of all the armchair analysis is the customer placed the fresh cup of coffee between her legs while in her car, and removed the lid. Her legs crushed the now-unstable cup... and she was unsurprisingly burned.

Yes, the kitchen has many hazards that are not expected in a drive-through restaurant, and your point about how she held the coffee is presumably why the jury found the plaintiff 20% liable rather than 0%.

Yes, and now the "Caution - Hot" markings on the cup keep us all much, much safer.

Any temperature above 100*F is going to burn. There is no safe temperature above 100*F that is not going to cause 2nd and 3rd degree burns.

The warning was made more prominent and, probably more importantly, they switched to rigid styrofoam cups that are less likely to buckle as happened in that incident. Furthermore, the Wikipedia article shared in the thread elsewhere details how such burns take substantially more contact with skin to happen if the coffee is not served so hot.

I think I agree with you on principle, but temps higher than 100 are totally fine in a lot of cases. Hot tubs are at 102-106. 120°F takes you like 10 minutes to suffer serious burns. But 140° will cause burns in seconds. I've seen cooks handle stuff waaay hotter than 140 for a half secondish (grab a noodle from a pot of boiling water, poke a 160+° burger on a grill, etc). Obviously makes a big difference if you splash yourself a bit vs get a whole cup on you too.

Found the litigator...

I am not now nor have I ever been a lawyer.

Sorry, I really couldn't tell what side you're arguing for here. But the hot coffee lawsuit was a good example of something that seemed crazy on first look, when on further examination... it still seemed crazy?

It's an example of people assuming a bureaucracy got something glaringly and obviously wrong, but when you dig into it, the bureaucracy probably got it right.

> The hot coffee lawsuit ...

So much lawyers' propaganda. We are engineers here. We are aware that coffee is water that boils at 100 degrees centigrade and gets no hotter than that. Every damn idiot and those more intelligent know full well that writing "Caution: contents hot" in microscopic text does absolutely nothing to make recently boiled water more safe.

Sure we should all feel sorry for someone who is badly burnt. Absolutely we should. It is inhuman not to feel so. And who can fee sorry for a corporation? Nobody should.

And we've let the lawyers use that sympathy to run riot writing themselves cheques on society's labor. As engineers we look at it and cry "Tort reform now!" and it is further and further away? Is it what killed Carter's presidency? Dunno. Last time it was anywhere near having anything done and that was 4 decades ago?

But go ahead and keep repeating it like the water was super heated to a 1000 degrees and writing text on the foam cup stops anyone from being burnt by boiled water.

Or don't. Really, just don't. Just because something sounds insane doesn't mean to say it actually isn't.

From Wikipedia... "McDonalds had received more than 700 reports of people burned by their coffee to varying degrees of severity". I remember reading a lot about this. It was the fact that McDonalds knew they had a dangerous product but wanted to keep it "hot" at the drive-thru so it would still be drinkable after people finished their car rides. That was a large factor of why the courts found McDonalds 80% liable in the case.

yeah if you want to argue the cups were rubbish and negligently so, fine. Go right ahead, there /may/ be a sensible discussion to be had there somewhere. It is at least possible

"Caution contents hot" Does not seem to be any way an engineering fix for this though, does it? Like seriously, why do you think that is written there? People expect cold? That fixes it? The mind boggles. So many legal fees on garbage like this.

But yeah, the lawyers got everyone jumping to their BS and so the zeitgeist will go into wikipedia.

Caution: contents silly.

I think a lot of the case focused on the temperature of the coffee. McDonalds brewed it above 135F and that put it in the category of "burn risk". They could have brewed it slightly cooler, but McDonalds thought it would detract from the taste.

Having "caution hot" was probably not enough of a warning. They should have put "caution burn risk" or something like that on the cups.

A purchaser has zero right to assume that a freshly brewed cup of coffee can't burn them. I mean seriously wtf? Children should know better and do.

A purchaser has no right to blame anyone else for putting a freshly brewed cup of coffee between their legs while driving a car. That is dangerous and reckless driving and they should be charged for not taking the proper regard for others safety.

You can hate mcdonalds and I /really/ do and see this BS for what it is. Exploiting your sympathy for a burn victim to accrue a mass of lawyers fees. This case and all the other legal actions on the same principle.

You don't have to be a "rugged individualist championing personal responsibility above all things" (aka libtard) to see it. You can even be a a massive socialist and still see the incredible damage to ordinary people engendered by this frankly insane interpretation and enforcement of the law. Nobody is safer, but the existing lawyers get richer and their highly productive segment of the economy grows. The effect on insurance premiums across the entire economy has been profound and immense.

Add up all the legal fees and flow on then compare to "caution: contents hot" written in tiny print on a cup that cannot be seen without holding said cup. Include all the additional legal fees from just this kind of nonsense for any small business trying to grow that come out of this. That is the outcome.

It's such an idiotic "AKHTUALLY it's not what it seems."

AKHTUHALLY it's not crazy like it sounds because it's really good for lawyers who have a huge interest in avoiding the necessary legal reforms and have done a truly stellar job pursuing those interests.

We are engineers here. We are aware that coffee is water that boils at 100 degrees centigrade and gets no hotter than that.

An engineer should know that the temperatures being used in this context are in Fahrenheit, and that on the Fahrenheit scale the boiling point of water is 212 degrees...

But go ahead and keep repeating it like the water was super heated to a 1000 degrees and writing text on the foam cup stops anyone from being burnt by boiled water.

McDonald's knew that the design of the cup and lid were defective, given that they had received several hundred reports of burned customers prior to the woman in the Hot Coffee lawsuit.

The "Hot Coffee" moniker is actually propaganda from far-right Koch-funded tort "reformers" who have spent tens of millions to convince people that this case was about just about someone spilling hot coffee (it was not) instead of a poorly designed product being kept in the market despite the business knowing of its flaws and choosing not to fix them (like the Ford Pinto).

If there was nothing wrong and nothing that could be done how come they switched to a different, more rigid cup that was less likely to spill in the same way after they lost the lawsuit?

"caution: contents hot"

Sorry, does this answer my question somehow?

There can be no improvement of anything with safety implications without an admission of guilt?

Writing "Caution: contents hot" in tiny writing that cannot be seen until after the cup is picked up is not a safety improvement so no admission there.

I can hold two things in my head at once. I can be desperately sorry that a lady spilled coffee down her crotch and got burned and have a great deal of sympathy for her, I could have done something as idiotic as that, easy. There but for the grace of $deity go I. At the same time I can think that really isn't anyone else's fault that she put a cup of takeaway coffee between her legs driving a car. Making decisions as poorly as that should preclude you from having a license. A rigid cup could have had the same result and while in agonizing pain she could easily have run down children.

Writing "caution: contents hot" in tiny writing is just flipping daft and deserves to be scorned for the nonsense from awful lawyers that it is.

This idiotic thing that looks idiotic because it is gets the AKTUHALLY treatment to defend lawyers and stop tort reform. Bleh. Oh, btw, I hate mcdonalds.

she only required medical fee. but jury decided company should get punishment.

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