McDonalds " Hot Coffee" Case

  In the year 1992 Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in the passenger seat of her grandson's car when she was severely burned by McDonald's coffee. Liebeck had ordered a coffee that was served in a styrofoam cup at the drive through window of the local McDonald's. It was said that after receiving the order, the grandsome pulled his car forward and stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. It was rumored that Stella Libeck was actually driving the car or that the vehicle was in motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true. But, the truth is Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from the cup. As she removed the lid, the entire contents of the cup spilled into her lap. Over 6% of her body including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas had third degree burns. McDonalds also said "that during discovery that, based on a consultant's advice, it held its coffee at between 180 degrees- 190 degrees."  "McDonalds however, also asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or home, intending to consume it there. , when they did some more research customers actually intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving." " They also tried to argue that customers know coffee is hot and that its customers want it that way. But, they did admit the customers where unaware that they can suffer third degree burns from the coffee. " The jury awarded Liebeck 200,000 in compensatory damages, that amount was reduced to 160,000 the jury found Liebeck to have 20% in the spill." The jury also awarded Liebeck 2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals two days of McDonalds coffee spills. http://www.hotcoffeethemovie.com/Default.asp