Let me break down what you've said, one bit at a time.
The fact is that she spilled coffee on herself because of her own carelessness.
Which she admitted at trial, and which the jury assigned her a percentage of the blame for.
Also, coffee is supposed to be hot, especially when customers add cream and sugar that cools it down.
Yes, coffee is supposed to be hot, but not as hot as 190 degrees. At that time, no commercial establishment served coffee that hot - except McDonald's. Part of the evidence the jury heard at trial was that all of the other convenience coffee sellers in the area, like Dunkin' Donuts, Burger King (this was before the era of Starbucks), etc., were all, ALL selling their coffee at between 160 to 165 degrees. The jury heard all of this.
What's the big deal about the approximately 25-30 degree difference in temperature? At the lower temperature, 160-165 degrees, it would take about 30 seconds to cause third-degree burns. That's plenty of time for you to react, strip off your clothing if need be, and avoid a third-degree burn.
Now before I go on, let me ask you - ever spill coffee on yourself? Ever see other people who spilled coffee on themselves? In all the times, in the decades, the entire lifetime that you've done this or seen other people do this, did you or any of those people have to go to the hospital? Did any of those people have to have skin grafts? No, right? That never happened to you nor to any of these other people, right? In your entire life, I've bet you've never even heard of someone having to go to the hospital because they spilled coffee on themselves, right?
But at the higher McDonald's temperature, third-degree burns - the worst kind, the kind that result in a person being immediately
airlifted to a
regional burn center and to have
multiple and painful skin graft operations performed on them - which is exactly what happened to her here in this case - third-degree burns occur within
two to six seconds. Not enough time to react. Not enough time to strip down.
And that makes what McDonald's was handing out through their drive-thru window unreasonably dangerous for the purpose for which it was intended.
McDonald's effectively handed her not a cup of coffee, but a cup of
hot molten lava. And the consumer would have absolutely no way of realizing this, because the coffee was served in styrofoam cups. Remember styrofoam? Unless you're over 40, you probably don't. Styrofoam is an almost perfect insulator. It's so good that you can't feel how hot something is on the inside. You can't tell if it's 165 degrees of 190 degrees because you can't feel it.
Styrofoam isn't used for coffee much anymore, because states have banned it, because it never, EVER breaks down when it's dumped into a landfill. That's why nowadays, coffee is always served in paper cups. Paper cups where you can feel exactly how hot the drink inside is.
Now, why did McDonald's serve
hot molten lava instead of coffee? Because way back in 1992, their coffee sucked, sucked, SUCKED. This was many years before they invented McCafe. And the coffee was even worse when it was cold. McDonald's knew (and the jury heard this) that their coffee tasted awful cold, and they also knew that the average person ordering coffee through the drive-thru would take up to 20 minutes by the time they drove home, parked the car, got out of their car, got inside, sat down, added their cream and sugar, and drank the coffee. If they served their coffee at 165 degrees, it would be cold undrinkable sludge by the time people started drinking it after getting home. So, rather than just sell a better quality of coffee, McDonald's made the conscious decision to serve their sludge at 190 degrees. And the jury heard all of this.
And worse, McDonald's knew -
they knew! - that their coffee being served at this temperature was causing numerous, horrific burns to people.
SEVEN HUNDRED PEOPLE. And McDonald's did nothing in the face of their coffee having burned all those people. And the jury heard all of that.
And remember, McD should not have been liable for her damages either, because she spilled the coffee on herself. A McD employee did not spill coffee onto her.
And that's incorrect as well. They were liable for a percentage of her damages because instead of serving what she expected to receive, a hot cup of coffee, they instead served her a cup of hot molten lava.
Now, yes, of course, she spilled coffee on herself. There is no question about that. But that's not the ONLY question at a trial. The jury was specifically asked, "
What were her damages caused by?"
If the coffee had been served at the normal 165 degrees, she would have spilled coffee on herself and suffered mostly first degree burns - that's the kind that you and I have suffered when we've spilled coffee on ourselves, the regular burn that we're all familiar with - and some second degree burns. Those are the kind that blister up and result in some loss of skin.
But she didn't suffer those. She suffered third-degree burns. Burns which no one who has ever spilled coffee on themselves has ever suffered. Burns which you've never even heard of someone suffering.
And the jury heard about her injuries - and her suffering. So, normally, with a car accident, someone comes in with whiplash or somesuch, and they go "Ow" when they turn their heads, right. And you sound like the kind of person who is very, very skeptical about that kind of injury. That's fine.
But here, you can't fake third-degree burns. The hospital had pictures of them. Remember, they were in her genitals. And the jury saw this and heard about all of this.
So the jury said, "Yeah, she would have suffered first and second degree burns because of her own carelessness. And we'll give a percentage of the damages to her because of that. But she wouldn't have suffered third-degree burns no matter how careless she was. She suffered third-degree burns, with all the pain and suffering that entails, solely because of McDonald's and their negligence."
Your very link is from such a biased lawyer group in California.
And the information that people "know" is all from biased pro-corporate groups.
There are lots of those links. And they all provide the same facts - and more - than those I provided in the link above. Which is where I got all of this information in this post. I didn't make it up. Here's another one, which cites to reams of actual evidence from the case:
http://abnormaluse.com/2011/01/stella-liebeck-mcdonalds-hot-coffee.htmlThere are plenty more of these sites. Are they all bullsh!t?
Lawyers get something like 35-40% of verdict in cases like this, so cases like this are extremely lucrative for them.
Are they? The lawyers only asked the jury for
$125,000. Not for the uncounted millions that the press reported on. The almost $3 million verdict was all the jury. And it was almost all punitive damages, because they were appalled at what McDonald's had done.
Now before you start screaming, "Ahhhhh! The jury system has run amok! It has to be reigned in! It has to be stopped!", let me tell you what happened after the jury came in with its $2.7 million punitive damages verdict - to punish McDonald's for its egregious behavior in this case and to get them to stop doing it in the future. The judge, realizing that that punitive damages verdict was far too high, turned right around and reduced that verdict by
EIGHTY-THREE PERCENT, down to $480,000.
The system works. It doesn't need any so-called "reforming."
I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
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citizenofdis
7 years ago
Let me break down what you've said, one bit at a time.
This should be fun.
Which she admitted at trial, and which the jury assigned her a percentage of the blame for.
Which is useless if she got an amount many times higher than 100% of her actual damages. Punitive damages are an abomination and just a way for plaintiffs and their lawyers to enrich themselves
Being assigned a percentage of blame should mean you walk away with less than the full amount of the damages. In her case it should be no more than 10% of her damages, because she
spilled the coffee on herself!
Yes, coffee is supposed to be hot, but not as hot as 190 degrees. At that time, no commercial establishment served coffee that hot - except McDonald's. Part of the evidence the jury heard at trial was that all of the other convenience coffee sellers in the area, like Dunkin' Donuts, Burger King (this was before the era of Starbucks), etc., were all, ALL selling their coffee at between 160 to 165 degrees. The jury heard all of this.
160-165 is definitely not hot enough, when you consider that most customers add cream and/or sugar, which obviously lowers the temperature. Also, hot things cool down over time. That steam rising from a hot beverage? It cools it through latent heat of evaporation. The coffee was certainly not at 190°F when she spilled it and it was even less when it came in contact with her thighs.
What's the big deal about the approximately 25-30 degree difference in temperature? At the lower temperature, 160-165 degrees, it would take about 30 seconds to cause third-degree burns. That's plenty of time for you to react, strip off your clothing if need be, and avoid a third-degree burn.
Then she should not have held a cup of in her lap and spilled it all over herself. Also, why should McD be held liable for her skin being old and thus more susceptible to burn damage? If it was her grandson who spilled coffee over his thighs he would not have suffered the same level of burns.
Now before I go on, let me ask you - ever spill coffee on yourself?
No.
But at the higher McDonald's temperature, third-degree burns - the worst kind, the kind that result in a person being immediately airlifted to a regional burn center and to have multiple and painful skin graft operations performed on them - which is exactly what happened to her here in this case - third-degree burns occur within two to six seconds. Not enough time to react. Not enough time to strip down.
Except that the liquid that came in contact with her skin was not at that temperature. It was probably around 140°F. Think about it. When you pour a hot liquid over a surface, you can observe steam rising. That's because of the increased surface area. This steam cools the liquid down due to latent heat of vaporization (which is very high for water). In addition, the hot coffee had to transfer heat to the woman's clothes as it penetrated through them. And finally, to scald her it has to transfer heat to the skin, raising its temperature. If the coffee spilled over .5m^2 (to account for all the areas that were supposedly scalded) and ~500mL was spilled (how big was the 49c coffee in 1992 anyway, and did she spill the entire contents on herself? In any case it can't be more than 16 oz or 480mL) that gives us 1 mm (for SI illiterates, 1 inch is 254 mm) of liquid thickness. That's not very much. That amount of water (coffee is mostly water) spread that thin will cool down rapidly, much faster than 6s.
So, I think that the main factor in her injury was the state of her 79 year old skin and not the coffee.
McDonald's effectively handed her not a cup of coffee, but a cup of hot molten lava. And the consumer would have absolutely no way of realizing this, because the coffee was served in styrofoam cups. Remember styrofoam? Unless you're over 40, you probably don't. Styrofoam is an almost perfect insulator. It's so good that you can't feel how hot something is on the inside. You can't tell if it's 165 degrees of 190 degrees because you can't feel it.
Lava is at >1000°F, btw. Not even close. And yeah, I know styrofoam. Pretty good insulator at 0.033 W/m/K. At 190°F(88°C) and outside temperature of 20°C(68°F) a styrofoam cup with a wall thickness of 2mm would still let out ~20W of heat through the sidewalls. Good insulator? yes. Almost perfect? No.
Now, why did McDonald's serve hot molten lava instead of coffee? Because way back in 1992, their coffee sucked, sucked, SUCKED. This was many years before they invented McCafe. And the coffee was even worse when it was cold. McDonald's knew (and the jury heard this) that their coffee tasted awful cold, and they also knew that the average person ordering coffee through the drive-thru would take up to 20 minutes by the time they drove home, parked the car, got out of their car, got inside, sat down, added their cream and sugar, and drank the coffee. If they served their coffee at 165 degrees, it would be cold undrinkable sludge by the time people started drinking it after getting home. So, rather than just sell a better quality of coffee, McDonald's made the conscious decision to serve their sludge at 190 degrees.
Quite aside from your opinions about the quality of their coffee (and I have no opinion on that, I am not even a coffee drinker), you admit that many customers drove for many minutes before they consumed their coffee. That justifies serving it at a higher temperature. Not even gourmet coffee tastes as good as it could once its luke warm I am sure.
And the jury heard all of this.
And boy, did they fall for it!
To be continued ...
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citizenofdis
7 years ago
And worse, McDonald's knew - they knew! - that their coffee being served at this temperature was causing numerous, horrific burns to people. SEVEN HUNDRED PEOPLE. And McDonald's did nothing in the face of their coffee having burned all those people. And the jury heard all of that.
700 people over a decade. How many millions of cups of coffee did they sell over that time? Seems like vast majority of people was perfectly capable of not scalding themselves.
And how severely were most of these 700 burned? I think most of these cases were pretty minor.
By the way, this is what the wiki article on the McD coffee case has to say about coffee temperatures.
"In 1994, a spokesman for the National Coffee Association said that the temperature of McDonald's coffee conformed to industry standards.[2] An "admittedly unscientific" survey by the LA Times that year found that coffee was served between 157 and 182 °F, and that two locations tested served hotter coffee than McDonald's.[32]
Since Liebeck, McDonald's has not reduced the service temperature of its coffee. McDonald's policy today is to serve coffee at 80–90 °C (176–194 °F),[33] relying on more sternly worded warnings on cups made of rigid foam to avoid future liability, though it continues to face lawsuits over hot coffee.[33][34] The Specialty Coffee Association of America supports improved packaging methods rather than lowering the temperature at which coffee is served. The association has successfully aided the defense of subsequent coffee burn cases.[35] 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)."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants#Coffee_temperatureSo it seems that neither was McD unique in serving its coffee really hot, nor has the industry abandoned the practice of serving coffee hot.
And that's incorrect as well. They were liable for a percentage of her damages because instead of serving what she expected to receive, a hot cup of coffee, they instead served her a cup of hot molten lava.
But they did not serve her hot molten lava. They served her hot, liquid coffee.
Now, yes, of course, she spilled coffee on herself. There is no question about that. But that's not the ONLY question at a trial. The jury was specifically asked, "What were her damages caused by?"
Her own negligence and the condition of her skin, which is not the fault of McD either.
This case is the poster case for "deep pockets" doctrine, where marginally liable entities end up paying disproportionally because they have deep pockets. The jury explicitly based their punitive damage award on the amount of coffee sales they made, meaning they went whole hog for the "deep pockets" doctrine.
If the coffee had been served at the normal 165 degrees, she would have spilled coffee on herself and suffered mostly first degree burns - that's the kind that you and I have suffered when we've spilled coffee on ourselves, the regular burn that we're all familiar with - and some second degree burns. Those are the kind that blister up and result in some loss of skin.
I reject this idea that businesses should be liable if anybody suffers injury through improper use of their product. Spilling coffee in your lap is improper use and McD should not be liable for that. Or if the jury insists they should be, at most 10% with 90% falling on Lubeck herself.
But she didn't suffer those. She suffered third-degree burns. Burns which no one who has ever spilled coffee on themselves has ever suffered. Burns which you've never even heard of someone suffering.
And that's probably because her skin was especially susceptible to burns. Not McD's fault.
And the jury heard about her injuries - and her suffering. So, normally, with a car accident, someone comes in with whiplash or somesuch, and they go "Ow" when they turn their heads, right. And you sound like the kind of person who is very, very skeptical about that kind of injury. That's fine.
They felt sorry about her injuries, felt that she should be paid, and McD has deep pockets. Again, this is textbook case of "deep pockets" doctrine.
And yes, I am skeptical as too many people are *beep* artists.
But here, you can't fake third-degree burns.
But I wonder if there was any connection between her doctors and her lawyers. That is pretty common - the ambulance chasing lawyers send business to the doctors who then interpret the injuries in light most favorable to the plaintiff. Quid pro quo. In this case, a whole lot of quids.
The hospital had pictures of them. Remember, they were in her genitals. And the jury saw this and heard about all of this.
And they felt sorry for her and decided to give her a lot of money. However, it ius easy to be generous with other people's money!
Perhaps maybe she should have put some balm on it. ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoINTDFosCYSo the jury said, "Yeah, she would have suffered first and second degree burns because of her own carelessness. And we'll give a percentage of the damages to her because of that. But she wouldn't have suffered third-degree burns no matter how careless she was. She suffered third-degree burns, with all the pain and suffering that entails, solely because of McDonald's and their negligence."
And they were wrong, given how coffee is still served very hot to this day.
Are they? The lawyers only asked the jury for $125,000. Not for the uncounted millions that the press reported on. The almost $3 million verdict was all the jury. And it was almost all punitive damages, because they were appalled at what McDonald's had done.
As I said, punitive damages are an abomination of our legal system. And they are what plaintiff's lawyers live for. It's what pays for their $10,000 suits and $200,000 cars.
Now before you start screaming, "Ahhhhh! The jury system has run amok! It has to be reigned in! It has to be stopped!", let me tell you what happened after the jury came in with its $2.7 million punitive damages verdict - to punish McDonald's for its egregious behavior in this case and to get them to stop doing it in the future. The judge, realizing that that punitive damages verdict was far too high, turned right around and reduced that verdict by EIGHTY-THREE PERCENT, down to $480,000.
[quote]The system works. It doesn't need any so-called "reforming."
It didn't really. Even though she was partially (and I would say mostly) responsible for her injury, she still received 240% of the damages the jury set, and 2,400% of the damages she originally sought.
Yes, it's good that a judge reduced the amount on appeal, but it did not go far enough. She still benefited monetarily from her negligence and the lawyers still got to shop at Armani.
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