By Mark Sweet, ESQ

Seeing as today, September 29, 2010 is National Coffee day in which many coffee establishments are giving away or deeply reducing their coffee prices.  Companies like Dunkin’ Donuts are giving away a free cup of coffee (participating shops only), some regional coffee chains like Barnie’s and Lamar’s Donuts are offering free coffee.  Sadly, no free coffee from Starbucks.  But, let us take the day to also remember Ms. Liebeck and the infamous “McDonald’s coffee case.”

The “McDonald’s Coffee Case”

In 1992 Ms. Liebeck brought a product liability lawsuit against McDonalds after she was burned by hot coffee she had purchased at a McDonald’s drive thru.  Her grandson parked the car so that his grandmother, Ms. Liebeck could put cream and sugar in her coffee.  She placed the coffee between her knees and promptly spilled the entire cup of coffee on her lap.  She was wearing cotton sweatpants which absorbed the coffee and held it against her skin.  She received rather serious burns on her thighs, buttocks and groin. 

The crux of her lawsuit was that McDonald’s was grossly negligent for selling coffee that was unreasonably dangerous because it was so hot.  McDonald’s generally served its coffee at 180-190ºF. During trial, documents showed that between 1982 and 1992 there were over 700 reports of people burned by McDonald’s coffee.  Even McDonald’s quality control manager testified that the numbers of injuries was quite high and that lowering the temperatures of food to 130 ºF would decrease the burn hazard. 

The Jury awarded Liebeck $2.86 million.  The trial judge promptly decreased the amount of payment to a total of $640,000.  In December 1994, the parties settled out of court. This case became something of a lightening rod at the time with many believing that warning labels had grown out of control.  Many of those people argue that the rule of common sense had disappeared, that a coffee cup did not need to warn that the coffee was indeed hot.  Others argued that the temperature of the coffee was unnecessarily hot. 

So remember, don’t spill coffee on yourself. 

Do you think people do these types of acts in order to get money?  Is this just a stupid lawsuit? Do we need more warning labels?   Hiding bugs or body parts in their food (a la a thumb in chili), or are companies just obsessed with making money regardless of the food quality?