On February 27, 1992, 79-year-old grandmother, Sheila Liebeeck of Albuquerque, spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald's. Her attorney convinced a jury to give $2.7 million in damages for minor burns.
Most people have heard this story, usually presented as an example of everything wrong with negligence lawsuits: unreasonable damage awards, slick trial lawyers, plaintiffs who blame others for their own mistakes, runaway juries, and judges who let these abuses continue. Everybody knows hot coffee can burn you, so reasonable people are careful with it. Right?
Wrong, say two websites, Right, says one.
Pro-plaintiff websites Slip-and-Sue.com and Lectlaw.com agree on all these facts, practically verbatim:
- The plaintiff's burns were not minor. She had third-degree burns over 16 percent of her body, including her groin and genital area. She needed multiple operations and skin grafts.
- She was permanently scarred and disabled for two years.
- McDonald's company policy ordered stores to serve coffee between 180 and 190 degrees, hot enough to cause third degree burns in seven to 20, experts for the plaintiff and the corporation testified.
- The company was aware of the danger because they had received 700 complaints of coffee burns before.
- Ms. Liebeeck was willing to settle for $20,000 to cover her medical expenses. When the company offered $800, she decided to take the case to court.
- The jury awarded Ms. Liebeeck $200,000, reduced to $160,000, because they felt the accident was 20 percent her fault.
- They also awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages, "as punishment of for [the company's] callous treatment of Mrs. Liebeck, and its years of ignoring hundreds of similar injuries."
- This amount was reasonable; It was two days’ worth of McDonalds’ income from coffee sales.
- The trial judge reduced the punitive damage to $480,000. After further negotiation, Mrs. Liebeck ultimately received $640,000.
Ted Frank at Overlawyered.com said the injuries were minor, and the plaintiff's fault. He says the coffee was 15 to 20 degrees cooler than the experts and McDonald's written policy said in court.
"When McDonald's and other restaurants lowered the temperature of their coffee [after the Liebeek award], all it did was cost those institutions market share," Frank says. "People like their coffee hot."
He says cooler coffee in most chains is the reason Starbucks grew from a neighborhhood store to an international dynasty. Their coffee costs much more than fast food restaurants, but it's hotter.
That sounds like the classic logical fallacy "I saw a robin. It started to rain. Therefore, robins cause rain."
He says 700 burn complaints between 1985 and 1995 is a microscopic minority of all the people who bought McDonald's coffee in that decade.
Most of the article is just a dismissal of people who defend the case. He uses words like" ludicrous on its face."
"The real urban legend has to be that the case has any legitimacy. Worse, this urban legend is being taught to a generation of law students by professors like Jonathan Turley and Michael McCann," Frank says. No facts there, just rhetoric and two personal attacks.
"It should be beyond debate, but it keeps coming up on websites and blogs, and we have to defend it," he says. More rhetoric with no facts.
The two pro-plaintiff websites don't use any language or logic like that. Therefore, I find them more credible.
http://www.slip-and-sue.com/the-famous-infamous-mcdonalds-coffee-spill-lawsuit-revisited/
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
http://overlawyered.com/2005/10/urban-legends-and-stella-liebeck-and-the-mcdonalds-coffee-case/
Ken Braiterman - Ken Braiterman writes columns for the Concord (NH) Monitor print and online editions. He also writes and lectures on recovery from ...
