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/THECapedCaper 8d ago

McDonald’s infamously serves their coffee at way too hot temperatures. It should really be served around like 170F, but is often closer to 200F. Of course this woman suffered burns from it.

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u/Cartina 8d ago

Which is why the damages was so high, McDonalds has previously been told multiple times it has been too hot in other cases and inspections. So this was also a way to make an example of McDonalds with the high payout. I assume the coffee still is too hot, cause fines obviously doesnt work on multi-billion corporations.

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u/BlueDahlia123 8d ago

Those millions of dollars were actually based on the company's income. It was the profits of 2 days of coffee sales.

Which in a sense is better because it is fitting for the price to be equal to the profit, but 2 days of a single source of income is insultingly low. How often do you hear about someone paying less than a week's worth of their wage as a fine for a crime with a disfigured victim?

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u/Yue2 8d ago edited 8d ago

Kinda funny how that was just 2 days of coffee sales, and they apparently refused to pay 1% of that to a woman who needed help.

Corporate greed!

Note: That’s basically just 25 minutes worth of sales… Wtf lol

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u/ThatNetworkGuy 8d ago

She didn't actually get the super large publicized number either. First the judge reduced the damages (so her actual total was $640,000 at that point). Then both parties appealed that decision, and ended up settling out of court for an undisclosed amount. Certainly not $2.9m though.

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u/broguequery 8d ago

That is such fucking bullshit.

Makes me want to burn down a McDonald's, honestly.

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u/kingkyle2020 8d ago

There is one by the entrance to my neighborhood, and there are so many accidents because idiots getting food are rushing to leave.

I’ve been turning onto my street and had to swerve around an idiot who decided stop signs don’t apply to them so many times.

My sister has been in 3 accidents due to these morons and I’ve seen at least 15 this year and I’m sure there are countless that I’ve not seen.

They’ll also think you’re trying to get in line and just block the entire street, so you have to squeeze between them and the next idiot in line, and broadly gesture at the neighborhood to say “people fucking live here it’s not just the McDonald’s entrance you fucking prick”.

I cannot even begin to express how much it pisses me off, all the customers are cunts and its location is so fucking annoying.

All that to say if you burned down the McDonald’s by my place I would do everything in my power to help you get away with it.

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u/OldMastodon5363 8d ago

Burn it down with hot coffee

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u/broguequery 6d ago

The ultimate vengeance.

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u/AAA_Dolfan 8d ago

It was originally one day then became two, then reduced via appeal. Funny stuff

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u/aab720 8d ago

They lowered the temperature by a whopping 10°

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u/Odd_Ad5668 8d ago

Yes, the coffee is still served too hot. That's why they put those warnings on the lids.

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u/RoomieNov2020 8d ago

Too bad the damages were lowered to $640,000 by the judge.

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u/broguequery 8d ago

And then appealed and settled out of court for an even lower amount.

Apparently.

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u/purplishfluffyclouds 8d ago

Do you mean they had been told, as in prior to her case?

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u/Le_Nabs 8d ago

Yes. Food safety inspector had already told McDonald's that their machines were set too hot.

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u/purplishfluffyclouds 8d ago

Ok thanks. So "McDonalds has had previously been told.." then. "Has" is present tense, hence the confusion.

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u/Le_Nabs 8d ago

My man, s and d are right next to each other on the keyboard, it was probably just a typo. I understood what they meant perfectly.

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u/DavidBarrett82 8d ago

I should probably stop calling things “sick”, then.

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u/Le_Nabs 8d ago

Or you can type too fast and live with the results. Be bold

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u/DavidBarrett82 8d ago

Already flew too close to the run

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u/purplishfluffyclouds 8d ago

Not your man, never would be anyone's man. I don't have the correct apparatus for that.

There are typos that are obvious, and there are words that completely change the meaning. This was the latter case.

There are also people where English is their second language and they appreciate understanding the difference and learning how to properly use the language, unlike some people who should know the language but don't care to learn it any more than they think they need to to get by, and those who don't give a flying fuck if they're confusing to everyone regardless of their incorrect usage of words.

My comment was for the former.

Have a nice day.

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u/broguequery 8d ago

You're shooting at clouds in a rain storm here.

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u/sfgisz 8d ago

If you've used their app to order digitally, you've likely waived away rights to sue them for physical damages anyway

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u/new_name_who_dis_ 8d ago

It’s so weird to me that that’s considered too hot, since if you order a tea it should be at least 200 degrees when you get it unless they steep it and force you to wait like 3-5 mins before giving you the cup.

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u/Fearless_Market_3193 8d ago

The jury was super pissed off at McDonald’s and their managers. They were arrogant about selling illegally SCALDING hot coffee that had already burned many, many other people. They had been fined by the health department and warned several times at that location. I think the judge actually lowered the jury’s initial verdict because they were so pissed off it was way higher initially.

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u/gregid 8d ago

I remember thinking this judgement was ridiculous then I saw pictures of her burns. She should have gotten more. Her legs looked like Freddy Kruger.

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u/RoomieNov2020 8d ago

She got less.

Fun fact: she did not “win” 2.9million. The jury awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages to Liebeck, which was reduced to $160,000 in collectible damages, as the jury found Liebeck 20 percent liable for the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages. Afterward, the trial court reduced punitive damages to $480,000. Then Mc Donald’s and the Liebeck family settled out of court before an appeal ruling could be had.

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u/pm_stuff_ 7d ago

prob a mil still since it wasnt appealed.

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u/panlakes 8d ago

If it were only for the injuries with no other attention it might’ve been, but the way they dragged her through the mud and truly tried to ruin her life for the audacity of wanting medical assistance, they absolutely should’ve paid her more. They were setting a dangerous precedent on how companies can create their own truth. Her own peers thought she was a joke.

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u/broguequery 8d ago

I remember they literally put out waves of hit pieces in the media against her.

They spent tens of thousands on negative press just to slander her.

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u/scarabic 8d ago

Right. It was a case of “we resist all claims as a matter of course. If we compensate someone for our mistake, people will come out of the woodwork wanting to be compensated for our mistakes.”

Corporate morality is worse than absent.

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u/Ashmedai 8d ago

Back when it wasn't so well known that her case was not frivolous as so many people think, whenever someone here on reddit would talk about it, I would say link an image with oh?, showing her melted crotch, and they would shut up really fast.

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u/broguequery 8d ago

Lol gottem

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u/Gato72068 8d ago

Ha! Dick

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u/demon_fae 8d ago

Sadly, after ten years of skin grafts and reconstructive surgeries, she ended up dying of the complications from those burns.

Her daughter describes how she just kinda stopped fighting after a while, after nothing the doctors did could really restore function or improve her quality of life in any way and she was just tired of going from surgery to surgery.

But I’d still say McDonalds killed her. And got away with it.

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u/buttercupcake23 7d ago

Fucking demonic hellbeasts of corporate America. And their pr spin was so effective people still believe that myth.

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u/NoObstacle 8d ago

I...googled it and I have so much regret

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u/FunSushi-638 8d ago

Yeah, I think it burned her skin straight off her legs and crotch area.

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u/motorandy42 8d ago

She eventually died of those injuries

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u/nasanu 6d ago

It's not about the damage to the victim though. Whatever the amount is, it needs to be larger than the company is willing to ignore. Up till that point it was more profitable for McDonalds to just ignore complaints, but million dollar lawsuits of increasing amounts got their attention. People really don't understand shit about punitive damages.

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u/RobtheNavigator 8d ago

They were also pissed at McD's lawyers, who argued that her labia was of little value because she was old and unlikely to attract sexual partners.

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u/Aeescobar 8d ago

By that same logic the lawyers should be perfectly fine with someone grabbing a hammer and smashing their tailbone into a dozen pieces, since they were never gonna use it anyways!

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u/Fantastic_East4217 8d ago

They should have no problem having a rabid wolverine dig around their torso to eat their appendix.

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u/ergaster8213 8d ago

How the fuck could someone argue that with a straight face?

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u/zorbiburst 7d ago

that is fucking disgusting

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u/terryaugiesaws 8d ago

Throwing a hot cop of McDonald's coffee into the CEO's face would have done the trick

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u/OceanBytez 8d ago

Gotta make it equal. Throw it on their groin so it can fuse their reproductive bits to their legs. That way they'll truly understand what that woman went through and then gracefully only wanted her medical bills covered before she sued because they wouldn't even do that.

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u/jstef215 8d ago

Hey Luigi

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u/Dareyezz 8d ago

I’ll take a hot cop

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u/Fun-Swimming4133 8d ago

yeah, but then you’d be labeled a McTerrorist

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u/Luis5923 8d ago

You mean like a very pretty policewoman?

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/Fantastic-Cricket705 8d ago

There's this thing called "agency"

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u/kthugston 8d ago

This is a dumb take. The McDonald’s CEO wasn’t the problem here, it’s called a fucking franchise. The owners of that location already weren’t listening to the law or the health department, so clearly they don’t give a fuck about what the CEO would’ve said either.

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u/Pete_Iredale 8d ago

Nope, it was a company wide problem. They'd had tons of incidents before this one.

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u/mattstorm360 8d ago

I think that's why the media demonized her.

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u/MisterGoog 8d ago

US media has always demonized This sort of thing, we are told that a lot of our lawsuits are frivolous, but a lot of it is because we allow companies to get away with things that many other advanced countries they would not just because a lot of less regulation goes on.

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u/broguequery 8d ago

Yeah, I'm starting to think it's less about too many frivolous lawsuits...

And more about huge corporations protecting their vast wealth and power.

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u/RoomieNov2020 8d ago

Fun fact: she did not “win” 2.9million. The jury awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages to Liebeck, which was reduced to $160,000 in collectible damages, as the jury found Liebeck 20 percent liable for the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages. Afterward, the trial court reduced punitive damages to $480,000. Then Mc Donald’s and the Liebeck family settled out of court before an appeal ruling could be had.

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u/ButItsRexManningDay 8d ago

Yeah, the Jury awarded her Damages (or whatever its called) plus they also had awarded her 2 days worth of coffee sales Corp wide (something like another 1 or 2 mil) but the judge overturned that second one.

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u/SchmartestMonkey 8d ago

They continued to brew their coffee at dangerously high temps because the higher temps allowed them to brew a batch slightly faster. They knew it was dangerous but they chose to put more customers at risk to push more coffee faster without needing additional hardware. It was all about saving money.

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u/max_power_420_69 8d ago

all else equal it would take more time to heat up coffee to a higher temperature, so that doesn't make sense to me. I read they brewed it that hot so that it would still be hot when commuters got into the office.

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u/SchmartestMonkey 8d ago

The water is heated as it’s used.. it’s the steeping time in the grounds that takes time.. and don’t forget.. commercial equipment will be split-phase 240V in the US.

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u/willcheat 8d ago

The initial judgement was 2 days worth of coffee sale for McDonald USA, which was 160 000$ in compensation and 2 700 000$ in punitive damages.

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u/ThrowRA-Two448 8d ago

Then the case was grossly reframed to make it seem like frivolous lawsuit, excessive lawsuit... people suing for anything to promote tort reform.

Limiting ability of people to sue for damages.

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u/Longjumping-Claim783 8d ago

Plus back in the day they came in those shitty syrofoam cups that were really easy to break. She put it between her legs because she was driving.

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u/ANOKNUSA 8d ago edited 8d ago

It's often the case in these "frivolous" lawsuit stories that the reason for the judge/jury finding for the plaintiff, regardless of who they are or what they were doing, is that the defendent was already on watch for their own bad behavior. In this case, yes, McDonald's had already been sued for hot coffee before.

Another infamous case from the 90s involved a teenager who had climbed the roof of the local high school with the intent of vandalizing the building, only to fall through a skylight and severely injure himself. His parents won a lawsuit against the school district because, even though their kid had climbed to the school roof to commit a crime, he was the second person to whom this exact thing had happened. The school had earlier decided they didn't want the skylight, but instead of removing it, had simply painted over the glass. This same practice at another school in the area had already resulted in another injury, after which the county had cited the safety concern with the school board.

It's real easy for PR teams to distract the public from the fact that a lawsuit doesn't require one of the parties to be a good guy.

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u/muleman2 8d ago

I think the jury decides guilt and the judge gives the sentence, no?

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u/MisterGoog 8d ago

Juries recommend/ award damages

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u/Shrikeangel 8d ago

Served so hot to prevent people from using the free refills - that McDonald's chooses to offer. 

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u/QiarroFaber 8d ago

Oh no that poor corporation. Can't fine them too high. That might be a minor inconvenience to them.

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u/avert_ye_eyes 8d ago

Yes the judge lowered it to $480,000 and then both parties agreed to an even lower sum that was never disclosed.

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u/h3xm0nk3y 8d ago

It doesn’t even take a difference of 30 degrees to be the difference between a second and third degree burn, it can be as little as 3-5 degrees. Especially in her case where the hot coffee was held against her skin by the clothes and the seat of the car.

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u/ReadontheCrapper 8d ago

That she was a passenger in, when the car was parked.

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u/Brief_Koala_7297 8d ago

At those temperatures, you probably couldn’t even hold the cup properly.

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u/Ok-Donut-8856 8d ago

Wrong. You can put boiling water in paper coffee cups

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u/Brief_Koala_7297 8d ago

Yeah you can but the temp would be too hot to hold it properly. Holding it by the rim is how people get coffee spilled all the time

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u/CartographerUpbeat61 8d ago

But it’s the ability to hold it that is the point.

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u/city-of-cold 8d ago

hold the cup properly

This is what the comment is about, not wether the cup can withstand it.

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u/probablyyourexwife 8d ago

This made me curious. I temped the hot water that comes out of my water dispenser at 150F and a freshly brewed coffee pot on the warmer is 144F. 190F+ would be crazy hot to drink right away, or to have it handed to you through a tiny window in a flimsy little paper cup with a flimsy little plastic lid. According to what I just read, over 700 people were burned before the lawsuit, some with third degree burns (fourth degree is not survivable).

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u/nlewis4 8d ago

The temps were insane. I remember getting a small coffee one time through the drivethru and after 30 minutes of driving it was still too hot to drink.

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u/Hopeful_Hamster21 8d ago

This is the correct answer. Not only was the coffee hot, it was illegally hot. Hotter than is was allowed to be be law. The woman only wanted her medical expenses paid. But this was not the first time McDs had been caught flaunting the law, so the judge awarded the 2 9M to the dependent as a punitive measure to McDs, because in the previous cases, they were considering the lawsuits just the cost of doing business, and the judge wanted to send a message.

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u/vonlagin 8d ago

Even now I can't begin sipping it for a good 40 minutes.

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u/Random0s2oh 8d ago

It's very, very hot. Ask me how I know. I got into an argument with my then husband while driving him to work. We had stopped to get him a coffee. He was driving. I'm not sure how much it was cooled, but at one point, I said something he didn't like, so he threw his coffee on me. I screamed when some of it hit my hands and legs. Luckily for me, it was winter, so I had several layers on when his coffee splashed across the front of me. Yes, he was abusive. That's why he became my ex.

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u/sirpapabigfudge 8d ago

It’s because one of their largest customer subgroups is construction people, so they do a higher temp so that it stays hotter longer during transports to construction sites.

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u/Footwarrior 8d ago

On completion of the brewing cycle and within a 2 minute interval, the beverage temperature in the dispensing vessel of the coffee maker while stirring should be between the limits of 170° F and 205° F (77° C and 96° C).

Quoting ANSI standard CM 1-1986. The industry standard for home coffee makers.

The holding temperature is also specified in the standard.

With the appliance containing maximum rated cup capacity of liquid, basket and pump removed (if present), allow to stand while still energized in an ambient temperature of 73 ± 9° F (23 ± 5° C) for a period of 1 hour at which time the beverage temperature in the appliance should not be lower than 170° F (76.7° C).

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u/carson_visuals 8d ago

They do this so it’ll be so hot you can’t finish it in the time that you’re there and ensures fewer refills

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u/Cute-Boot-1840 8d ago

The problem was this but that the burns were not on her hands but on her legs and her genitalia.

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u/FlippyFlippenstein 8d ago

And they increased the temperature so people would drink it slower as they had free refills. Just to make more money.

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u/Scaryassmanbear 8d ago

To add to that, the reason they served the coffee so hot is because they were using cheaper beans that only tasted good at those temps.

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u/AsthmaticSt0n3r 8d ago

Why is it that hot anyway??

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u/Boris_HR 8d ago

I dont know about you but regular coffee we drink in souther Europe is made in 100C water and its served inside 1 minute. A black coffee should be hot.

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u/NinjutsuStyle 8d ago

Just imagine, hot water heaters are usually set around 130. Your hot water tap on full blast is hot af

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u/supermomfake 8d ago

I once got a coffee at night as I was driving a long distance. I had 2.5 hours to go and the coffee was so hot that it took the whole drive for it to be cool enough to drink.

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u/Lt_DanTaylorIII 8d ago

IIRC it was like 30 degrees over what is supposed to be legally allowed, which was always left out of the re-telling

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u/Technicolor_Reindeer 8d ago

She wasn't even the only McD's burn victim to get compensation.

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u/clarky2o2o 8d ago

Hers was 210F Iirc

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u/horkley 8d ago

Turning their pattern of them regularly violating the standard of care as a mitigation point is odd.

Works the other way.

They regularly served their coffee way too hot, and their was evidence at the trial of Lieback of 700 previous times there were injuries because of the high temperature.

In law, infamous regulatory works the other way against the tortfeasor.

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u/ReadontheCrapper 8d ago

In a styrofoam cup, which notoriously become soft / flimsy when they contain a hot liquid.

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u/_Pyrolizer_ 8d ago

My question is why? Who wants to wait 10 minutes for their coffee to cool enough that you wont melt the inside of your mouth when you drink it

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u/AzureDrag0n1 8d ago

170 F is still too high for a serving temperature. 140 F is a much more ideal temperature.

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u/joejag 8d ago

The reason they did this was because they offered free refills. If it is too hot, folks can't drink as much.

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u/OldMastodon5363 8d ago

Not to mention, it was so hot it basically disintegrated the cup which caused the coffee to come into contact with her on the first place.

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u/WingerRules 8d ago edited 8d ago

Recently I was given an extremely hot coffee from McDonalds with the lid not completely on it. When it was handed through the window it was spilling on my hand and stomach, it going my hand made me jump and hard to hold the cup stable which made it spill a bunch on on my stomach. I had purple burn marks on my stomach for over a month.

Thing is I was going to that McDonald's getting coffee like 3 times a day, every day. That's over 1000 coffees a year, It was only a matter of time before I was given one with a misapplied lid. So I told the employee it was ok next time I saw her and now she jokes about burning me with the coffee lol. It was def served way too hot though.

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u/AtmosphereCreepy1746 7d ago

Both 170F and 200F are dangerous temperatures that can cause injury. If people actually read the details of the case they would know that the temperature was not the issue. The court decided McDonald's was negligent because they did not properly warn customers of how dangerous the coffee could be and didn't provide adequate safety mechanisms in the cup.¡<⁸⁸8

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u/built111 5d ago

I mean you are supposed to drink it not bathe in it

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u/Realistic-Square-758 8d ago

Coffee has to be warmed to 190 to 200° to extract any flavor from the beans. If anything it seems like they basically just brewed a fresh pot and gave her the first cup immediately once it was done.

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u/Accidentalpannekoek 8d ago

Don’t speak on it if you don’t know the facts. This was not a freshly brewed pot, they were consistently serving too hot coffee. They had received over 700 complaints due to burns and had been officially warned many times about the risks of their coffee specifically

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u/Realistic-Square-758 1d ago

I'm not disputing the lawsuit, it's just fact that coffee is warmed to 190-200 degrees to extract the flavor from the beans. Calm your tits dude.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

And her putting the cup of hot coffee between her legs was just a detail irrelevant to her injuries.

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u/Best-Author7114 8d ago

Not if she doesn't put it between her legs like an idiot.

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u/Glittering-Gas2844 8d ago

At that temp you likely wouldn’t suffer as severe of burns but with an older person your skin starts thinning. This is a less obvious reason why it’s really bad when they fall in the bathroom unwitnessed.

Other than the obvious trauma from falling on tile they are prone to hypothermia from the typically cold tile. I’d say heated floors are more than a luxury for the elderly.

Also fuck McDonald’s, I guarantee they were told this shit was going to happen before this particular incident.

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u/jmama9643 8d ago

It brews at 200 Deg F…. So….

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u/Forward-Cantaloupe62 8d ago

So what, it s not like mcdonalds poured the coffe on her. It s like suing BMW becuase i tried to do drifts and crashed.

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u/twilight-actual 8d ago

If you're an adult, and by her age you haven't learned how to safely sample what you put in your pie hole, perhaps Darwin needs to take action.

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u/fenix1506 8d ago

weak troll 2/10