Hot Coffee decades later

[edporch]

Just because this woman got bad burns from spilling her coffee on herself, McDonald's did nothing negligent.
Coffee MUST be brewed at a temperature of at least 190 degrees to get proper extraction.
Coffee brewed at 140 degrees would taste like dishwater.

Only a careless person would not treat a cup of freshly served coffee as a hot liquid that could burn them if they aren't careful.
McDonald's was more than generous even offering to pay her medical bills.

 

[forgop]

This might be a stretch but lets try to correlate this to some other industry for a moment, say the car industry.

Coffee, even though it is not a standardized industry, has a range of temperatures that the beverage is commonly served at for both safety etc. etc. blah blah. If you purchase a cup of coffee you can reasonably expect that the serving temperature will be similar to other vendors. Just like when you buy a car you can reasonably expect that the car is safe and in most normal auto-accident the safety features will protect you. However, lets say one car company has found that it is more profitable to use air-bags of a suspect origin because it is cheaper to do so. You buy the vehicle because it has passed safety tests and shows that is is safe. However, 5 years down the road it has come to light that the air-bag units may be faulty and the company knows that. Still there is no recall yet. Then, you get in an accident and are maimed for life because the air-bag didn't deploy.

Now, by your argument you knew that driving a car had it's risks and you should accept that this happened to you. By the argument of Indy_Guy_77 and some others it was proven that this was not an isolated incident and that the company was deliberately putting the drivers of their vehicle at risk because it meant more profit. Would it be frivolous for you to sue the auto-maker? That is what happened in the case of McD's coffee.

The serving temperature of their coffee was well above typical serving temperatures in the industry. It is pretty reasonable for a person to assume there is risk of being burned by hot coffee, it is unreasonable to state they should have known McD's serves their coffee 20 degrees hotter than the rest of coffee vendors and should be extra careful because McD's coffee can cause 3rd degree burns where-as other coffee can only cause 2nd-degree in most cases.

Really, I was in the same camp as you for nearly 2 decades until I watched the documentary and read up on it. I discovered through my own research that McDonalds was acting negligently serving a non-standard product in the likeness of a similar, yet much safer product.

Now, that's not to say that I'm saying McDonald's is at fault for spilling the coffee, because that isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying McDonald's was at fault for serving a product that was much more dangerous than other products served in it's likeness.

Apples and oranges comparison.

It's a shame it was the very first time she'd ever bought a cup of coffee from McDonalds or she would have known it was hot.

 

[forgop]

Just because this woman got bad burns from spilling her coffee on herself, McDonald's did nothing negligent.
Coffee MUST be brewed at a temperature of at least 190 degrees to get proper extraction.
Coffee brewed at 140 degrees would taste like dishwater.

Only a careless person would not treat a cup of freshly served coffee as a hot liquid that could burn them if they aren't careful.
McDonald's was more than generous even offering to pay her medical bills.

I blame the car manufacturer for not having cup holders to put the coffee in. Had they been available, she never would have placed the coffee between her loins.

 

[wtfd661]

Coffee is BEST Served HOT, Accidents Happen, Idiots abound and refuse responsibility and Ambulance Chasing Attorneys are in Business

Well said!

 

[shibumiseeker]

The pictures of the injuries she sustained are great jury fodder because they play well to the emotion. In the end, she still spilled it on herself and found a lawyer who felt he could make a few bucks going after the evil corporate giant. And don't tell me I never knew all of the details of the story, I spent a week in a business law class studying the case with a professor who was very clearly on the side of the plaintiff and after considering all of the testimonies, pictures, etc, I still felt the same way. And considering that I generally am pretty firmly against the big corporate giants on principle and are happy when occasionally the little guy wins against them, that says a lot. Hot coffee is hot. Whether it can cause more or less injury is a relatively moot issue, I expect any hot beverage to at the very least hurt if I spill it on myself and take care accordingly.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Apples and oranges comparison.

It's a shame it was the very first time she'd ever bought a cup of coffee from McDonalds or she would have known it was hot.

How is that different? A company elected to do something outside of industry norms putting the consumer at greater risk of severe bodily injury. There were a multitude of cases documenting the fact that their product was more dangerous than competitors product. How is that any different?

Is it because the person elected to take the risk of putting the coffee in her lap? I elect to get behind the wheel of my car to drive to work. Does that mean that if the manufacturer of my car took short-cuts to save money and I die because of it that I'm liable because I chose to drive to work that day?

 

[hornadylnl]

How is that different? A company elected to do something outside of industry norms putting the consumer at greater risk of severe bodily injury. There were a multitude of cases documenting the fact that their product was more dangerous than competitors product. How is that any different?

Is it because the person elected to take the risk of putting the coffee in her lap? I elect to get behind the wheel of my car to drive to work. Does that mean that if the manufacturer of my car took short-cuts to save money and I die because of it that I'm liable because I chose to drive to work that day?

Were you in an accident or did you cross the centerline and hit another driver head on? One is an accident, the other is negligence. A faulty air bag is hardly to blame for an act of negligence.

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

I wonder what would happen to one of us should it be determined that an entire auto manufacturer was putting in lower quality explosive/accelerants into their automotive airbags - thus greatly decreasing inflation time - thus leading to a higher incidence of injury?

I mean - driving/riding in a vehicle is inherently dangerous. It's not like the driver/passenger intends to crash (well, most don't), nor do they intend to have the airbag deploy.

I think I need to go home and give my daughter some scalding-hot hot chocolate. Hey, it's HOT CHOCOLATE. She knows that word. I'm sure she'll be able to figure out on her own not to dump it on herself.

 

[shibumiseeker]

I think I need to go home and give my daughter some scalding-hot hot chocolate. Hey, it's HOT CHOCOLATE. She knows that word. I'm sure she'll be able to figure out on her own not to dump it on herself.

I should hope you should care for your daughter and look out for her until she is old enough and mature enough to understand the risks and physically be able to deal with them. That is being a good parent. And I should hope that when she is out on her own you let her take the risks in life rather than hovering over her all of the time and prevent her from doing anything that might be risky to the point where she is stifled.

It boils down to (see what I did there) that some of us really don't want every little risk in life to be legislated out, regulated out, or insurance company ruled out. If I want to run with scissors then more power to me, I don't expect you or anyone else to pay when I hurt myself. There's already a lot of things we are not "allowed" to do because it is too dangerous, and that is fundamentally where the differences are for many of us who think that the lawsuit was ridiculous. Yeah, it was sensationalized by the media, but my judgement on it didn't originate there.

 

[forgop]

How is that different? A company elected to do something outside of industry norms putting the consumer at greater risk of severe bodily injury. There were a multitude of cases documenting the fact that their product was more dangerous than competitors product. How is that any different?

Is it because the person elected to take the risk of putting the coffee in her lap? I elect to get behind the wheel of my car to drive to work. Does that mean that if the manufacturer of my car took short-cuts to save money and I die because of it that I'm liable because I chose to drive to work that day?

I guess it all depends on whether there were 700 comaints of the air bags being defective for a reasonable person to....

 

[CountryBoy19]

Were you in an accident or did you cross the centerline and hit another driver head on? One is an accident, the other is negligence. A faulty air bag is hardly to blame for an act of negligence.

The circumstances of an accident are irrelevant. We aren't talking about a single car accident, the connection to a single incident is only because that is the incident where somebody was injured bad enough to do the investigative work to discover the negligence. The collective data of numerous incidents is then compiled to develop a trend compared to competitors and other similar goods/industries. A documented trend showing an unusually high incidence of faulty equipment for a single manufacturer's products is enough to make the determination that they were using faulty equipment. Now throw in the fact that they were aware the equipment was faulty but continued using it because it meant more profit for them and it becomes negligence. The latter is the case for McD's. They knew their coffee was much hotter than competitors and that is carried a much higher consequence if spilled on a consumer; they chose to accept that risk and continue serving unusually hot coffee.

I guess it all depends on whether there were 700 comaints of the air bags being defective for a reasonable person to....

That's my point. The single case alone is not proof of negligence. Throw together 700 documented cases of similar incidents, compare them to industry competitors and you have some very sound documentation that McD's coffee is much more dangerous (due to the higher temp) than their competitors.

 

[Whitsettd8]

A reasonable person expects their fries to be that hot, they're server out of hot oil that is the same temperature no matter what establishment serves them.
Mcdonalds served coffee @ 190... everywhere else coffee is made @ 140. Society had come to expect that coffee = 140, hot, not dangerous.

According to the national coffee assoc of the USA coffee should be brewed at 190-205 and served at 180-185.

If she would had been driving down the road spilled the coffee and wrecked into a bus full of kids would McDonalds been liable for their injuries/deaths?

The lawsuit should had been thrown out merely on that grounds that it opens the doors for all the other BS lawsuits to follow.

Louisville Slugger got sued and lost because a ball coming off one of their bats killed a pitcher in little league. Even though it complied with the regulations set forth governing little league.
How many times has Glock or other firearm of ammo manufacturer been approached with lawsuits over someone being shot.
All the legal system does is enable the "victim loop" and enables society to take even less accountability for their actions.

I've said enough time for some 180 degree liquid death.

 

[forgop]

That's my point. The single case alone is not proof of negligence. Throw together 700 documented cases of similar incidents, compare them to industry competitors and you have some very sound documentation that McD's coffee is much more dangerous (due to the higher temp) than their competitors.

How many tens of millions of cups were sold by McDonalds up to that point to receive 700 comaints? We're talking about such a small statistical percentage that we're not talking about reasonable people but dumb@sses dumb enough to take a lid off a hot beverage in their laps. It's safe now, so feel free to pour the 175 degree coffee over your genitals.

I need to start advising parents whose kids get severe burns cuz they pick up hair straighteners and come to the ER. A reasonable parent expects it to straighten/curl hair, not melt the skin off their children's faces.

 

[1775usmarine]

If Rainman knows hot water burn baby, this lady should of known hot coffee burn lady.

 

[Baditude]

There is a fundamental disagreement here. The justified lawsuit people believe that the suit was proper because said coffee was dangerously hot. While true, the other side of the story is that many things in life are dangerous but do not make the company who produced said dangerous item liable if the consumer has an accident with it.

I find myself leaning to the "It's a dangerous world, suck it up." side of things.

Hot liquids are a funny thing. Liquids are very good at holding heat energy and therefore even a temperature that doesn't sound that hot can burn badly in a short time.

Time to scalding/3rd degree burn

@120°F 5 minutes
@124°F 3 minutes
@127°F 1 minute
@133ºF 15 seconds
@140ºF 5 seconds
@149ºF 2 seconds
@156ºF 1 second

From the case, So the liquid temp would have been roughly 124. Go heat some hot chocolate/tea/cider/water in the microwave to the point where it is comfortably hot for you to drink. You'll typically be around the 120º mark. The difference is that you aren't going to be sitting in a puddle of it. You'll be sipping small portions.

Testimony showed that the coffee was heated to 180 to 190.
There was 700 other coffee burn cases that McDonald’s was aware of.
Stella suffered 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] degree burns over 16% of her body. The burns were to her inner thighs, buttocks, perineum, and genital and groin area. The burns went as deep as her bone. She was wearing sweatpants which were literally burned into her skin

That coffee was way too hot to drink - burning to the bone and burning sweatpants into her skin.

 

[CountryBoy19]

How many tens of millions of cups were sold by McDonalds up to that point to receive 700 comaints? We're talking about such a small statistical percentage that we're not talking about reasonable people but dumb@sses dumb enough to take a lid off a hot beverage in their laps.

That fact is irrelevant to the discussion. How many millions of vehicles are sold compared to the number of them that burst into flames?

Lets examine hazard analysis a little bit more to help us understand how it would be determined that a company has a "problem" with their product.

First of all for a consequence to occur the incident that results in the consqence must occur first, at which point you have the consquence. In this particular case, both automobile related and coffee related the likelihood of incidence is likely the same across all manufactureres in the industry. That is, a Ford explorer is just as likely to get in an accident as a Chevy Tahoe etc and so forth. So to determine if a certain manufacturer has a problem we cannot rely on likelihood of the incident occurring (rate of incidence) because the likelihood is similar across the board and it is irrelevant to the examination. We must consider the consequences if that incident occurs. If we look at the consequence of a Chevy Tahoe getting in a rear-end collision and 98% of the time the fuel tank remains in-tact and 99% of the occupants involved survive we can say the Tahoe is fairly safe. Yet, examining the Ford explorer may show us that 74% of the time the fuel tank stays in-tact and 91% of occupants survive. Throw in a few similar size SUV's and you can determine quite easily if Chevy has an exceptionally safe Tahoe or if Ford has an exceptionally dangerous Explorer. If it's the latter you can be certain that Ford will be scrutinized heavily on the safety of the Explorer and people injured/killed in resulting accidents may have a case for wrongful death, etc and so forth.

Furthermore, we can, in-fact do the same examination for the likelihood of a fuel-tank bursting in a rear-end collision. In this case, the consequence will be very similar across all competitors but the likelihood would be the variable. The consequence of the fuel tank bursting violently will often result in a fire no matter what vehicle it is on. However vehicle design with determine the likelihood of that occurring given similar conditions for a rear-end collision. In this case the examination would go the same but now they are looking at liklihood. But that is besides the point for spilling coffee.

I'm certain that the liklihood of spilling coffee is similar across the board no matter if you drink McD's coffee or Starbucks coffee, the same percentage of people probably spill on themselves. So in that case the consequences would be the determining factor.

I think its a very reasonable assumption that when we climb into a vehicle that the manufacturer has put their best effort into making it safe, but if they knowingly, negligently made the decision to make it less safe than what is standard then they accept the liability of that decision.

 

[Leo]

What ever happened to the terms "reasonable" and "prudent"?

 

[forgop]

What ever happened to the terms "reasonable" and "prudent"?

They no longer exist-only stupid exists now.

 

[edporch]

Testimony showed that the coffee was heated to 180 to 190.
There was 700 other coffee burn cases that McDonald’s was aware of.
Stella suffered 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] degree burns over 16% of her body. The burns were to her inner thighs, buttocks, perineum, and genital and groin area. The burns went as deep as her bone. She was wearing sweatpants which were literally burned into her skin

That coffee was way too hot to drink - burning to the bone and burning sweatpants into her skin.

Since it takes water of at least 190 degrees to PROPERLY brew coffee, are you saying that freshly made coffee should be artificially cooled immediately after brewing?

I checked my own coffee maker (Bunn A-10), and it brews at 190+ degrees, and the warmer keeps the coffee at a steady 160 degrees.
It would burn me if I spilled it on myself, even at 160 degrees.

Does that mean if i spill it on myself, Bunn should pay me money?

 

[Bigtanker]

I'm wondering if this is why "Iced Coffee" made it main stream.