McDonald's Hot Coffee Case

Recently, an e-mail was sent to me about the McDonald’s hot coffee cup case.  The message was that lawyers filed a silly case and got rich. The McDonald’s hot coffee case was used to attack the legal profession. This blog is about one case, and not a guide to accident claims.  I turned to Andrea Gerlin, Wall Street Journal, September 1, 1994, and The ‘Lectric Law Library ( www.lectlaw.com) for the facts.   

Facts in the News:  Facts are stubborn things.  They remain facts in the face of passions and prejudice.  The facts of this case are well known.

• 2/27/1992, Stella, a 79 year old woman, bought a 49 cent coffee at McD’s;
• Her grandson was driving, pulled forward from the McD’s window and stopped;
• Stella then tried to pull the plastic lid off of the coffee cup to add cream and sugar;
• The coffee spilled in her lap.

Facts not so well Known:   

• McD’s coffee pots were set to make coffee at 180 to 190 degrees;
• Mr. Coffee, at my house, made coffee this morning at 138 degrees; McD’s coffee was 47 degrees hotter than at my house this morning;
• A law student was hired to go around town, buy coffee, and stick a thermometer in the cup;
• The law student found that McD’s coffee was 20 degrees hotter than the hottest coffee sold in town;
• A McD’s executive told the jury that 185 degree coffee was not fit to drink, because it would burn the mouth and throat, but it smelled best at that temperature;
• McD’s coffee, almost instantaneously destroyed Stella’s skin, flesh, and muscle with third degree burns on 6% of her body and second degree burns on 16% of her body.  Coffee, at the lower temperature, would hurt, but give one time to take action and avoid burns;
• the jury saw the photographs of ugly burns on Stella’s inner thighs, buttocks, groin and genital areas;
• the jury saw the photographs of the skin graft process, where the burned skin is peeled off the victim’s body and then replaced; it feels as bad as it sounds;
• the jury heard testimony that McD’s had scalded 700 people with serious burns in the past 10 years; some of the cases were substantially similar to Stella’s; the jury saw that McD’s executives knew about nature and extent of the scalding for 10 years;
• the jury heard testimony that McD’s paid out $500,000 on claims to burn victims over 10 years; no one counted the seriously burned persons who did not file claims;
• the jury heard testimony that McD’s had no plans to change the temperature for brewing coffee;
• the jury heard that McD’s knew that the drive thru customers  were driving to work;
• the jury heard McD confess that it knew its super hot, undrinkable coffee was routinely spilled in the cars on people;
• the jury heard that McD’s served billions of cups of coffee and that McD’s was unfeeling about Stella;
• the jury heard that McD’s makes $1.35 million day in coffee sales;
• the jury surmised that McD’s is cold blooded; $1.35 million in coffee sales a day means everything; Stella is nothing.
• Allow the jury to figure out that McD’s is callous, arrogant, and too big to think of Stella.
• the jury did not know that McD's could have settled the case for $20,000 to pay for $11,000 in medical bills for skin grafts.  

Results:  The jury thought it was a case about callousness, not coffee, and awarded Stella money.  Then the jury punished McD’s by ordering it to pay 2 days of coffee money.  The Judge ruled that Stella was 20% at fault and McD’s 80% at fault, and cut back the award.  Although it was a public trial, Stella and McD’s signed a secret settlement, probably less than $600,000. It was a great victory for Stella. After looking at a 2 1/2 million dollar jury award, the settlement was a big victory for McD’s. The longer lasting result of the he jury’s decision to ridicule McD’s, was continued attacks attacks on the legal profession.

Deeper Meaning:  McD’s executives callously burned 700 people with a superheated, undrinkable coffee for 10 years, but in truth and fact they were picking up a big cat by the tail, and learned things they could not learn any other way. This is not the fault of the legal profession.