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I regard that as a frivolous lawsuit. As unfortunate as the outcome was, simply put it was her own damn fault. If McDonalds provided her with the coffee with no

I regard that as a frivolous lawsuit. As unfortunate as the outcome was, simply put it was her own damn fault. If McDonalds provided her with the coffee with no defects (to the cup for instance) then there was no negligence on their part. Obviously if you spill a hot drink on yourself your going to burn yourself. What is the difference between that and selling someone a hammer and then they crush their hand with it? Admittedly from my perspective here in Ireland I may view this differently from yanks. We drink a lot of tea and good tea must be boiling when you add the teabag, also drive-throughs are a lot less common so you will typically not have your beverage in a moving vehicle.

waterfowl 12y ago
No, there's hot and there's "almost boiling" and they'd been told several times to stop keeping the coffee that hot but somehow it saved time. Key words from the lawsuit "fused labia." It was not minor burning.
- everyone 12y ago
  Well there was some mention of the cups not being fit for purpose and the temperature not being the standard which are valid points, but I do not think it is fitting to stress or mention the severity of the injuries (as many people here are doing) when debating the issue at hand. How severe the injuries are is immaterial to any negligence on the part of McDonalds. That is just logic. To illustrate: I could buy a "harmless" marshmallow from a sweet shop and then kill myself with it, by using it to block my airway.
  - waterfowl 12y ago
    But "being at an unsafe temperature" is not integral to coffee being coffee(or good). A marshmallow is not being served in an unnecessarily(and unconventionally) unsafe way. If you bought a superheated marshmallow you could get hurt too.
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      If you define 'unsafe' as capable of causing third degree burns, it actually is integral. McDonald's could have served significantly cooler coffee, but it still would have been capable of such burns.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    The severity of the injuries is important because McDonalds had ignored many previous accidents and had ignored a CDC request to reduce the temperature. Reducing the temperature reduces the severity of the injuries. Using your marshmallow analogy: if you sold the marshmallows in individual plastic shells and children started eating the marshmallows by sucking them out of the shells, and children were sometimes choking because they were inhalling the confection, and you were told about this but ignored it, then yes you probably should bear some responsibility. I case you think this is unlikely: http://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/news/2011/mar/jellycupban#.U27wVmq9LTp http://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/news/2011/mar/jellycupba...
    - rdtsc 12y ago
      > The severity of the injuries is important because McDonalds had ignored many previous accidents and had ignored a CDC request to reduce the temperature. That and also it was a very important element in the PR campaign that was waged. Hiding and obscuring the extend of damages was crucial to its success. It would be hard to paint it as "oops someone burned themselves with some coffee, how silly" it they had to mentioned those were life threatening burns.
  - phpnode 12y ago
    If I sell you a harmless marshmallow heated to 10000°C and when you bite into it your face is engulfed in flames, who is being negligent?
- saalweachter 12y ago
  Also, from the article, the burns were so severe that she went into shock. > “All I remember is trying to get out of the car,” Liebeck later related. “I knew I was in terrible pain.” She went into shock and her grandson rushed her to the emergency room, where she would undergo surgery and receive skin grafts.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jdmichal 12y ago
> We drink a lot of tea and good tea must be boiling when you add the teabag. But yet, iced tea and iced coffee both exist. The temperature required to make a substance has no correlation to the temperature it must be served at.
DanBC 12y ago
People might expect coffee to be hot, but they do not expect the coffee to be hot enough to kill. She suffered full thickness burns. This is a significant wound. The burns were on her legs and genitals. That turns it into a medical emergency - rush to nearest hospital, let them stabilize you and send you to a different hospital that specializes in burns. Also, the car was not moving at the time of the accident.
- stuki 12y ago
  Any coffee heated to the point where it is still drinkable at the end of a 20 minute commute, will be hot enough to kill if poured straight down your throat in one gulp. It is up to the customer to have some sort of clue. I am pretty sure that when granny makes coffee herself at home, she makes it at least as hot as McDonalds serves it. Whistling kettles and all. In a country of millions of people doing stuff, sometimes the stars align wrong for someone, and they get hurt. It doesn't have to, and in fact rarely is, someones "fault." It wasn't granny's "fault" that this one time she fumbled the lid and spilled coffee. Given enough tries, sooner or later anyone would, as it is a positive probability outcome. But neither is the probability of it happening large enough to say McDonald's was "at fault" of something. Stuff happens. Sometimes nice stuff, sometime less so. No need to feed a lawyer army either way. It's the same silly obsession with finding who's "at fault" that underpins the enormously inefficient (except for, again, for lawyers) "at fault" car accident insurance schemes in place in most states. Despite most accidents and other mishaps being the result of all manners of complicated, best modeled as random, factors. None of which are a specific party's "fault." But of course, there's the old adage about most people ending up in law school, do so because they couldn't hack math well enough to ever get into the complex systems classes....:)
  - DanBC 12y ago
    She didn't ask for coffee that would stay hot after a twenty minute commute. She asked for coffee. She was served coffee hotter than other places served coffee. Other places had listened to and responded to the CDC's warning about beverage serving temperatures and had reduced the temperature of the drinks that they served while still allowing people to order extra hot drinks. Yes, when a kettle boils the water is at 100 Celsius. But you pour that into a cup and add milk. Try it at home if you have a thermometer. Try taking the temperature of coffee that you find acceptable to drink with the temperature that McDonalds was serving their coffee at. Do you realise that the McDonalds coffee case was used as propaganda by insurance companies? They misreported the case (they said she was driving; that the vehicle was moving; that she sued for and got millions;) they also said "of course coffee is hot"'and did not mention that McD's was serving coffee hotter than other places and had ignored many previous injuries and the CDC warning on temperature.
nemo 12y ago
She tried to settle for $20k for medical expenses and lost wages but McDonalds offered $800. McDonalds had more than 700 reports of injuries from the coffee. Their internal quality control manager reported that they recognized that they were posing a burn hazard to customers with the heat of their coffee, but that it was a minor concern that they were unwilling to adjust. McDonalds admitted that not only were they burning customers who drank the coffee straight from the cup, many of whom needed medical treatment, but that this was something they were unwilling to change. That is clearly not frivolous. She tried to settle. She was not looking for a big score. In the process of discovery the company was openly belligerent about their plan and willingness to continue to pose a public safety risk.
- JetSetWilly 12y ago
  None of that seems to change the fact that it was her own fault, I'm a bit confused how anybody could think it does. There's thousands of people cutting themselves with kitchen knifes every year too. So what? It doesn't make the kitchen knife manufacturer somehow liable if you cut yourself if they "knowingly" sell you a kitchen knife despite being fully aware of the thousands of injuries caused by them every single year. All the stuff about how she was injured (emotive irrelevance), how other customers are also injured - is just an irrelevant distraction to the central fact that it was entirely her own fault and her own responsibility.
  - nemo 12y ago
    She was found partly at fault. Based on the trial she wasn't found entirely at fault. The injury actually was relevant and not an emotive distraction. McDonalds was selling coffee, not knives. Most would have the expectation that spilling a cup of coffee on yourself wouldn't leave you with 3rd degree burns on 6% of your body with 1st and 2nd degree burns on another 16%. She not only needed eight days of hospitalization for skin grafts, but also years of medical treatment. McDonalds acknowledged that customers had gotten 3rd degree burns from using their product in the executed manner (multiple customers with 3rd degree burns), but that they were unwilling to make a minor change to the product that would prevent this. It was the fact that they knew they had already injured people to the point of needing hospitalization that could have been avoided by making a minor change to keep people from getting injured that was at the root of why they were at fault. It was the fact that in court they stated that they were unwilling to make that change even after knowing about this injury that caused punitive damages, which the judge reduced.
PhasmaFelis 12y ago
> Obviously if you spill a hot drink on yourself your going to burn yourself. If I sell you shampoo with hydrochloric acid in it, and some gets in your eyes and you're permanently blinded, should I be held blameless because "obviously getting soap in your eyes hurts?"
- pekk 12y ago
  It is my right to buy shampoo with hydrochloric acid in it without the nanny state getting in the way. Sane adults don't blame someone else when they put hydrochloric acid in their own eyes.
  - gordaco 12y ago
    I would say that it's my right to have the guarantee that there is no hydrochloric acid in a hygiene product, especially one that can get near sensible parts of the body like your face and your eyes. Sane adults can blame someone when they buy a product whose properties do not match those of what the product is supposed to be. It may be your right to buy hydrochloric acid and to pour it over your head, but actually, that's wildly different to what you said.
  - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
    I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. On the off chance that you're not, though: you can buy hydrochloric acid and pour it in your eyes if you really want to, but you should also have an expectation that ordinary hair care products won't have surprise deadly acid in them. Similarly, you can pour boiling water in your lap on purpose if that turns you on, but no one should be handing you a cup of flesh-melting liquid and telling you that it's fit for immediate consumption.
rdtsc 12y ago
> Obviously if you spill a hot drink on yourself your going to burn yourself 3rd degree life threatening burns? There is nothing obvious about that. This is not like a hammer but a gun without a safety one, given to people in a drive through. Most could put those in their pockets and between the seats, but some will at some point pull the trigger. One can argue about the idiocy of those that pulled the trigger and shot themselves, but it is just as well valid to argue about why is the safety off by default. Now think of safety as the temperature value.

waterfowl 12y ago

No, there's hot and there's "almost boiling" and they'd been told several times to stop keeping the coffee that hot but somehow it saved time. Key words from the lawsuit "fused labia." It was not minor burning.

everyone 12y ago
Well there was some mention of the cups not being fit for purpose and the temperature not being the standard which are valid points, but I do not think it is fitting to stress or mention the severity of the injuries (as many people here are doing) when debating the issue at hand. How severe the injuries are is immaterial to any negligence on the part of McDonalds. That is just logic. To illustrate: I could buy a "harmless" marshmallow from a sweet shop and then kill myself with it, by using it to block my airway.
- waterfowl 12y ago
  But "being at an unsafe temperature" is not integral to coffee being coffee(or good). A marshmallow is not being served in an unnecessarily(and unconventionally) unsafe way. If you bought a superheated marshmallow you could get hurt too.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    If you define 'unsafe' as capable of causing third degree burns, it actually is integral. McDonald's could have served significantly cooler coffee, but it still would have been capable of such burns.
- DanBC 12y ago
  The severity of the injuries is important because McDonalds had ignored many previous accidents and had ignored a CDC request to reduce the temperature. Reducing the temperature reduces the severity of the injuries. Using your marshmallow analogy: if you sold the marshmallows in individual plastic shells and children started eating the marshmallows by sucking them out of the shells, and children were sometimes choking because they were inhalling the confection, and you were told about this but ignored it, then yes you probably should bear some responsibility. I case you think this is unlikely: http://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/news/2011/mar/jellycupban#.U27wVmq9LTp http://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/news/2011/mar/jellycupba...
  - rdtsc 12y ago
    > The severity of the injuries is important because McDonalds had ignored many previous accidents and had ignored a CDC request to reduce the temperature. That and also it was a very important element in the PR campaign that was waged. Hiding and obscuring the extend of damages was crucial to its success. It would be hard to paint it as "oops someone burned themselves with some coffee, how silly" it they had to mentioned those were life threatening burns.
- phpnode 12y ago
  If I sell you a harmless marshmallow heated to 10000°C and when you bite into it your face is engulfed in flames, who is being negligent?
saalweachter 12y ago
Also, from the article, the burns were so severe that she went into shock. > “All I remember is trying to get out of the car,” Liebeck later related. “I knew I was in terrible pain.” She went into shock and her grandson rushed her to the emergency room, where she would undergo surgery and receive skin grafts.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jdmichal 12y ago

> We drink a lot of tea and good tea must be boiling when you add the teabag. But yet, iced tea and iced coffee both exist. The temperature required to make a substance has no correlation to the temperature it must be served at.

DanBC 12y ago

People might expect coffee to be hot, but they do not expect the coffee to be hot enough to kill. She suffered full thickness burns. This is a significant wound. The burns were on her legs and genitals. That turns it into a medical emergency - rush to nearest hospital, let them stabilize you and send you to a different hospital that specializes in burns. Also, the car was not moving at the time of the accident.

stuki 12y ago
Any coffee heated to the point where it is still drinkable at the end of a 20 minute commute, will be hot enough to kill if poured straight down your throat in one gulp. It is up to the customer to have some sort of clue. I am pretty sure that when granny makes coffee herself at home, she makes it at least as hot as McDonalds serves it. Whistling kettles and all. In a country of millions of people doing stuff, sometimes the stars align wrong for someone, and they get hurt. It doesn't have to, and in fact rarely is, someones "fault." It wasn't granny's "fault" that this one time she fumbled the lid and spilled coffee. Given enough tries, sooner or later anyone would, as it is a positive probability outcome. But neither is the probability of it happening large enough to say McDonald's was "at fault" of something. Stuff happens. Sometimes nice stuff, sometime less so. No need to feed a lawyer army either way. It's the same silly obsession with finding who's "at fault" that underpins the enormously inefficient (except for, again, for lawyers) "at fault" car accident insurance schemes in place in most states. Despite most accidents and other mishaps being the result of all manners of complicated, best modeled as random, factors. None of which are a specific party's "fault." But of course, there's the old adage about most people ending up in law school, do so because they couldn't hack math well enough to ever get into the complex systems classes....:)
- DanBC 12y ago
  She didn't ask for coffee that would stay hot after a twenty minute commute. She asked for coffee. She was served coffee hotter than other places served coffee. Other places had listened to and responded to the CDC's warning about beverage serving temperatures and had reduced the temperature of the drinks that they served while still allowing people to order extra hot drinks. Yes, when a kettle boils the water is at 100 Celsius. But you pour that into a cup and add milk. Try it at home if you have a thermometer. Try taking the temperature of coffee that you find acceptable to drink with the temperature that McDonalds was serving their coffee at. Do you realise that the McDonalds coffee case was used as propaganda by insurance companies? They misreported the case (they said she was driving; that the vehicle was moving; that she sued for and got millions;) they also said "of course coffee is hot"'and did not mention that McD's was serving coffee hotter than other places and had ignored many previous injuries and the CDC warning on temperature.

nemo 12y ago

She tried to settle for $20k for medical expenses and lost wages but McDonalds offered $800. McDonalds had more than 700 reports of injuries from the coffee. Their internal quality control manager reported that they recognized that they were posing a burn hazard to customers with the heat of their coffee, but that it was a minor concern that they were unwilling to adjust. McDonalds admitted that not only were they burning customers who drank the coffee straight from the cup, many of whom needed medical treatment, but that this was something they were unwilling to change. That is clearly not frivolous. She tried to settle. She was not looking for a big score. In the process of discovery the company was openly belligerent about their plan and willingness to continue to pose a public safety risk.

JetSetWilly 12y ago
None of that seems to change the fact that it was her own fault, I'm a bit confused how anybody could think it does. There's thousands of people cutting themselves with kitchen knifes every year too. So what? It doesn't make the kitchen knife manufacturer somehow liable if you cut yourself if they "knowingly" sell you a kitchen knife despite being fully aware of the thousands of injuries caused by them every single year. All the stuff about how she was injured (emotive irrelevance), how other customers are also injured - is just an irrelevant distraction to the central fact that it was entirely her own fault and her own responsibility.
- nemo 12y ago
  She was found partly at fault. Based on the trial she wasn't found entirely at fault. The injury actually was relevant and not an emotive distraction. McDonalds was selling coffee, not knives. Most would have the expectation that spilling a cup of coffee on yourself wouldn't leave you with 3rd degree burns on 6% of your body with 1st and 2nd degree burns on another 16%. She not only needed eight days of hospitalization for skin grafts, but also years of medical treatment. McDonalds acknowledged that customers had gotten 3rd degree burns from using their product in the executed manner (multiple customers with 3rd degree burns), but that they were unwilling to make a minor change to the product that would prevent this. It was the fact that they knew they had already injured people to the point of needing hospitalization that could have been avoided by making a minor change to keep people from getting injured that was at the root of why they were at fault. It was the fact that in court they stated that they were unwilling to make that change even after knowing about this injury that caused punitive damages, which the judge reduced.

PhasmaFelis 12y ago

> Obviously if you spill a hot drink on yourself your going to burn yourself. If I sell you shampoo with hydrochloric acid in it, and some gets in your eyes and you're permanently blinded, should I be held blameless because "obviously getting soap in your eyes hurts?"

pekk 12y ago
It is my right to buy shampoo with hydrochloric acid in it without the nanny state getting in the way. Sane adults don't blame someone else when they put hydrochloric acid in their own eyes.
- gordaco 12y ago
  I would say that it's my right to have the guarantee that there is no hydrochloric acid in a hygiene product, especially one that can get near sensible parts of the body like your face and your eyes. Sane adults can blame someone when they buy a product whose properties do not match those of what the product is supposed to be. It may be your right to buy hydrochloric acid and to pour it over your head, but actually, that's wildly different to what you said.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. On the off chance that you're not, though: you can buy hydrochloric acid and pour it in your eyes if you really want to, but you should also have an expectation that ordinary hair care products won't have surprise deadly acid in them. Similarly, you can pour boiling water in your lap on purpose if that turns you on, but no one should be handing you a cup of flesh-melting liquid and telling you that it's fit for immediate consumption.

rdtsc 12y ago

> Obviously if you spill a hot drink on yourself your going to burn yourself 3rd degree life threatening burns? There is nothing obvious about that. This is not like a hammer but a gun without a safety one, given to people in a drive through. Most could put those in their pockets and between the seats, but some will at some point pull the trigger. One can argue about the idiocy of those that pulled the trigger and shot themselves, but it is just as well valid to argue about why is the safety off by default. Now think of safety as the temperature value.