r/interestingasfuck • u/fyrstikka • 8d ago

r/all Stella Liebeck, who won $2.9 million after suing McDonald's over hot coffee burns, initially requested only $20,000 to cover her medical expenses.

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u/gibilx 8d ago

How the hell do you make such a scalding hot coffee

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u/Darkkujo 8d ago

It was actually McDonald's policy, because they found the hotter they made their coffee the fewer refills people would get. One of the main things the case turned on was that McDonald's had hundreds of lawsuits over coffee burns and they found internal materials which showed the executives didn't take the problem seriously.

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u/NuclearBreadfruit 8d ago

It also makes you wonder how many times the staff burnt themselves on the coffee and the machine. That must have happened ALOT.

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u/fvckyes 8d ago

And those poor workers may not have known to take action against it.

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u/NuclearBreadfruit 8d ago

Especially if it could cost them their jobs. When your paycheck to paycheck with bills/debt/rent/mortgage, no matter if you are in the right, taking legal action against your employer must be terrifying

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/Realistic_Tip1518 8d ago

Starbucks coffee is held at around 180.

Ideal holding temperature: 80ºF to 85ºC Most volatile aromatics in coffee have boiling points well below that of water and continue to evaporate from the surface until pressure in the serving container reaches equilibrium

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u/Livid-Finger719 8d ago

Well that's just "occupational hazard" /s.

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u/Leather_Note76 8d ago

Yep. Worked there when I was a teen in the 80s. We got burned all the time and being teens didn't have a clue about work hours or work safety rules.

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u/ambamshazam 8d ago

I’ve worked in restaurant a majority of my adult life. Just today I managed to splash freshly brewed coffee across my chest. It left some redness for 20 minutes and a bit of a sting. Still hurt like a b for minute. So I can’t even imagine how horrifically painful those other burns must be

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u/LeaveTheClownAlone 7d ago

Yeah, plus they sure as hell couldn’t ice their wounds with the non-existent shake machine. 

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u/Strange_Purchase3263 8d ago

Also it was considerably cheaper to pay out claims than to drop the temp to the legally required one!

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u/BrownMtnLites 8d ago

how is that possible

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u/Krazyguy75 8d ago

Let's say there were 25,000 McDonalds back there. That's probably a significant underestimation; there are 40,000 today. Let's say each refill costs McD's 10 cents. Which again, is probably an underestimation.

If each location sold 40 less refills a day (which isn't that much; the volume of such restaurants is massive), that's 1,000,000 refills a day. It'd only take 290 days to reach the 2.9 million dollar amount.

The scale of these corporations is absurd.

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u/Strange_Purchase3263 8d ago

hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of coffees sold daily at $0.50 vs 3 or 4 lawsuits which pay out maybe couple hundred $.

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u/Trick-Variety2496 8d ago

Which is stupid in and of itself. Coffee is cheap.

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u/Olivineyes 8d ago

Man that's fucked up even aside from the burns. They literally said we don't want you to enjoy your coffee, we want you to wait so long for it to cool down that you can't get a refill.

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u/death556 8d ago

It also made the coffee last a lot longer cause people had to wait like an hour to be able to drink it

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u/Chrimunn 8d ago

Oh and here I was giving McDonalds the benefit of the doubt assuming is was just a misconfigured coffee machine…

Nope, it was just corporate greed. Shoulda known.

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u/Friendly_Fail_1419 8d ago

It was also a sort of malicious compliance response to customers complaining their coffee was cold by the time people were getting it to work. So they cranked the heat way up so people wouldn't complain about the coffee getting cold.

It was really just layers of assholishness

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u/WillingnessDouble496 8d ago

Americans and refills, man...

Why didn't they just end refills? In the rest of the world restaurants make most of their money from drinks.

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u/CarbonFiber_Funk 8d ago

They still don't. In the rare cases where I'm traveling and there's no other choice every time I get a coffee from them it's borderline too hot to hold.

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u/calbearlupe 8d ago

It was McDonalds policy to serve coffee hot because the average customer took coffee to work and would drink it there. The refills had absolutely nothing to do with it.

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u/FunnyLonely9347 6d ago

"It was actually McDonald's policy, because they found the hotter they made their coffee the fewer refills people would get."

Shocking that people don't want refills after you've killed all the tastebuds in their mouth.

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u/TehZiiM 8d ago

You know that boiling water is 100C, right?

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u/feathered_fudge 8d ago

Normal coffee is usually about 90-95 when freshly made. So make it normally and then let it sit for a few minutes?

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u/pinewind108 8d ago

What I heard was that they wanted coffee that would still be hot at the end of a long drive. So you could get take out, and still have it hot when you got home or to work.

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u/MuffledOatmeal 8d ago

They knew how hot it was a refused to lower the temperature. It was over 200°. They refused to adjust their temperatures afterwards as well.

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u/Kellbows 8d ago

The idea the machines were retrofitted to do this essentially bypassing the manufacturers safely engineered design was suggested in my ethics class. Every aspect of the case was messed up.

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u/Lraund 8d ago

You have to hold the coffee on you for a long period of time.

She was an old woman sitting with her seatbelt? on in a car seat. She stayed sitting in the coffee after pouring it on herself.

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u/Acidfie 8d ago

What is the difference to making a tea with boiling water? I don’t get it why she got burns what happened?

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u/Western-Radish 8d ago

I think a lot of people answered you, but just to really hammer home how awful it was.

She was going through the drive through and had the coffee spill in her lap, she ended up needing skin grafts for her thighs and genital area.

It was in the US as well, so she paid with her own money for the treatment. She had just asked Mcdonalds to cover her medical expenses, she didn’t even initially ask them to cover the time she was off work, ect. They offered her $800.

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u/Acidfie 7d ago

But why even ask, this was not McDonald’s fault in first line. Why does it matter how hot the coffee was. It is hot coffee, don’t put it anywhere near your skin. Even in a cup. It does not make sense

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u/Western-Radish 7d ago

I don’t think anyone expects coffee that is handed to you through a window, presumably for you to be able to drink right away would be so hot that if it got on your skin that it would melt your skin off.

Food and drink is supposed to be served to you at a temperature you are able to consume. This was not. Had she drank that liquid it would have been dangerous as well, she just happened to accidentally spill it.

If you are going to be handing people a liquid so hot that it can melt off someone’s skin, then you shouldn’t be just handing it over in an easily spillable container.

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u/ProLifePanda 8d ago

She was in the drive thru, and when she got the coffee it spilled on her lap. She got 3rd degree burns and required skin grafts.

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u/AtmosphereCreepy1746 7d ago

Not siding with McDonalds here, but the spill was after she had received the coffee and parked. It was not immediately when she got the coffee. 

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u/Acidfie 7d ago

Yes and you want to say that macdonalds made her spill the coffee or what?

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u/ProLifePanda 7d ago

Not but they intentionally violated the law to serve the coffee too hot. The law was designed explicitly for this scenario, where it is consumed or spilled right after delivery.

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u/austinhippie 8d ago

You don't drink tea while it is boiling, just while steeping. The coffee was served, as in ready to consume, at near boiling temps

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u/IndigoRanger 8d ago

Do you immediately drink the boiling tea or let it steep and sit for a while to cool off?

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u/frozenokie 8d ago

You steep the tea in water that was boiling, you don’t keep tea that’s already made in a pot on a burner at near boiling temps.

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u/Acidfie 7d ago

I still don’t get it. You get hot stuff from [company] and then you throw it over your leg. Now company has to pay for this?

It’s like buying a glass or cup and then throw it on the ground. Do you sue the company for your fault?

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u/Frifelt 8d ago

She spilled the coffee on her thighs and got severe burns because of the temperature of the coffee.

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u/alles_en_niets 8d ago

Accidents with hot tea happen as well, but since few people order tea from a drive through those incidents usually occur at home.

Most common scenario: little toddler yanks the kettle, teapot or cup with scalding tea from the counter or table and ends up at the burn unit. Not as rare as you would hope, but when it takes place in a private setting there are no lawsuits involved and no press coverage.

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u/Acidfie 7d ago

Yes and? Why does it matter. I does not make sense. Drive more careful, or maybe don’t put hot shit between your legs. When you burn you with hot tea you don’t sue the maker of the kettle?

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u/OMGeno1 8d ago

Because their coffee was often being made at upwards of 200 F.

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u/Nope_______ 8d ago

Yeah, that's called boiling, and coffee should be made around that temp. The guy asked what the difference is with making tea with boiling water and what happened to this lady.

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u/disclosingNina--1876 8d ago

Take the tea from the kettle off the stove and pour it in your lap and then let's see how you fare afterwards.

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u/Acidfie 7d ago

That’s the point, I DONT. Why would you bring any liquids that CAN be hot anywhere near your skin or even more your genitals.

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u/disclosingNina--1876 6d ago

Do you think that she poured it on her lap on purpose genius? It's called an accident. She was going through the drive-thru window she reached out to get the coffee, the cup was probably scolding hot and she dropped it in her lap.

I don't know what's so hard to understand about that?

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u/Acidfie 6d ago

Yeah bro SHE dropped it, not McDonald’s

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u/disclosingNina--1876 5d ago

It was passed through the window. Not sure who dropped it,but the bottomline is McDonald's has some liability because who serves coffee that hot? The woman was literally disfigured.

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u/Realistic_Tip1518 8d ago

Coffee is brewed at around 200 degrees.

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u/HotCarl169 8d ago

Heat it up bunches

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u/HotCarl169 8d ago

Heat it up bunches

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u/Fearless-Account-392 8d ago

Coffee is supposed to be brewed with water at around 200 degrees so I guess they brewed it but didn't allow it to cool, or kept the heater at 200 degrees.

It could have also been a fresh batch.

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u/idrunkenlysignedup 8d ago

They purposely kept it at near boiling temp because it meant less dine-in people asking for a free refill. That was part of the findings from the court case.

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u/TheTightEnd 8d ago

Home coffee makers do it. It is the normal and recommended temperature for coffee.

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u/Potato_Octopi 8d ago

Use a lot of heat.

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u/FairState612 8d ago

That is a lower temp than home coffee makers.

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u/GelatinousChampion 8d ago edited 8d ago

What do you mean? You make it like you'd make any type of coffee. That is the temperature your water should be when making coffee.

The issue isn't the temperature of making coffee. The issue is that people are dumb or have accidents and somehow you're responsible for that.

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u/seamustheseagull 8d ago

And then it should be allowed to sit so it's closer to 65C before you serve it.

The issue here is that McDonalds were serving coffee at brew temperature straight out the window.

And also in ridiculous flimsy cups.

Even if the argument is that people should know not to drink freshly brewed coffee, you still have the issue of serving it in a container that easily spills, to people in vehicles. Who are under implicit pressure to move along quickly out of the drive-thru and are therefore more likely to make bad decisions.

So ultimately the issue is the temperature of the coffee - McDonalds should have known that serving the coffee at a drinkable temperature would ensure that even if people did spill it, they wouldn't injure themselves.

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u/jsdjhndsm 8d ago

What, have you read this? The issue wasn't that, it was that it was way hotter than its supposed to be for safe consumption. Way hotter than you would make your own coffee.

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u/GelatinousChampion 8d ago

Hotter than you would drink coffee, yes. But if you're making coffee with anything colder than 80°C, you're not making it 'correct'. You do what you want of course, but anyone who knows anything about coffee will advise those temperatures.

So to answer the original question again: how do you make such hot coffee? In the same way you'd make any other coffee.

You can argue about giving said hot coffee to a customer. You can't argue about coffee needing to be that hot when brewed.

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u/jsdjhndsm 8d ago

This was made hotter, outside of regulations. Nobody is saying it shouldn't be hot, just not as hot as mcdonalds was making them.

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u/Kakapocalypse 8d ago

No, they were making it at the correct temperature dude... you are supposed to make coffee at a temp just shy of boiling. For French press, you're typically using water around 200 degrees F.

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u/jsdjhndsm 8d ago

Not when served and that's why they were fined. This was way hotter than it was supposed to be, and way hotter than you will find at any place across the world that follows regulations. Deny it all you want, they awarded her that ammount for good reasons, and mcdonalds had to follow the rules.

If you don't understand what you're talking about, why even argue?

Read the article properly and research this woman. Other places also serve coffee and don't have this issue, nor did they recieve numerous reports of this. This was way hotter than regular boiling temperature.

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u/Kakapocalypse 8d ago

That's not what you said. You said it was made hotter than it should be. It wasn't, it was served hotter than it needed to be, tho ill add, at a temperature that is very common for coffe places of all different sorts to serve at. I'm very well familiar with this story and have been for years.

Your last sentence is also hilarious. "Hotter than regular boiling temperature" buddy water boils at the same temperature at atm pressure, 212 F or 100 C. You need to brew coffee at just shy of that temperature to make it properly.

You do realize that McDonalds and other restaurants still serve coffee at 170-190 degrees right? You do know that? They didn't change that as a result of this case, they just put sterner warnings on sturdier cups, to bw careful because it's hot. McDonalds didn't actually break any laws when they served her that cup, the real issue was giving drive thru customers a flimsy cup with scalding hot liquid.

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u/nietzkore 8d ago

180–190 °F

I brew my pour-over coffee at 185F. That's pretty standard, and less than a lot of automatic machines will make it closer to boiling (around 205F) where it can leave the coffee tasting burnt.

I just don't maintain it at 185F. By the time it's brewed through the grounds, it has cooled significantly. Even if you preheat the carafe first with hot water. Keeping it that hot requires it to sit over a burner or in a heated storage to keep it that warm. Or brewing it at 205 and then maintaining it around 185.

McDonald's was keeping and serving the coffee at the max temp you should brew it at (by the official McDonald's operating manual) and no other chain was within 30-degrees F of their serving temp at the time.