mcdonald's hot coffee case study

What a lot of people get wrong about the infamous 1994 McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit

Adam Ruins Everything explains that the case wasn’t about greed, but about a working-class woman forcing a big company to make its product safer.

by German Lopez

It’s treated as a classic example of judicial overreach and greed: A woman, driving in her car while holding McDonald’s coffee between her legs, spills some of the coffee on herself. Inflicted with some minor burns, she sues McDonald’s, as if she shouldn’t have known that coffee is hot and driving with it in your hand or legs is dangerous. And then she ultimately wins millions of dollars from the fast food chain — becoming rich due to a dumb mistake that was all on her.

Only this is all wrong.

In a new segment of Adam Ruins Everything , host Adam Conover explains that basically everything people think they know about the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit is false. He walks through some of the actual details of the case:

• Stella Liebeck was a 79-year-old woman in Albuquerque, New Mexico, whose grandson drove her to McDonald’s in 1992. She was in a parked car when the coffee spilled.
• Liebeck acknowledged that the spill was her fault. What she took issue with was that the coffee was so ridiculously hot — at up to 190 degrees Fahrenheit, near boiling point — that it caused third-degree burns on her legs and genitals, nearly killing her and requiring extensive surgery to treat.
• McDonald’s apparently knew that this was unsafe. In the decade before Liebeck’s spill, McDonald’s had received 700 reports of people burning themselves. McDonald’s admitted that its coffee was a hazard at such high temperatures. But it continued the practice, enforced by official McDonald’s policy, of heating up its coffee to near-boiling point. (McDonald’s claimed customers wanted the coffee this hot.)
• Liebeck didn’t want to go to court. She just wanted McDonald’s to pay her medical expenses, estimated at $20,000. McDonald’s only offered $800, leading her to file a lawsuit in 1994.
• After hearing the evidence, the jury concluded that McDonald’s handling of its coffee was so irresponsible that Liebeck should get much more than $20,000, suggesting she get nearly $2.9 million to send the company a message. Liebeck settled for less than $600,000. And McDonald’s began changing how it heats up its coffee.

As Conover put it, “This was an incredibly rare case where a working-class victim actually beat a huge team of corporate lawyers and made the world a better place.”

So how did the public’s view of this case get so warped? According to Conover, lawyers spent years running a disinformation campaign, which much of the media bought into, holding up the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit as an example of a supposed epidemic of frivolous lawsuits.

“The last several decades, large corporations afraid of being sued for making unsafe products created front groups like Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse to turn public opinion against lawsuits,” University of Washington professor Michael McCann told Conover. But “the best social science evidence shows that the number of personal injury lawsuits in recent decades has declined, and the median payout is only $55,000.”

The lesson here: There are many problems with our justice system, from vast racial disparities to a bail system that excessively punishes the poor . But the McDonald’s hot coffee case isn’t one of those problems.

Watch: Why you should drink coffee before you take a nap

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The Real Story Behind McDonald’s Infamous Hot Coffee Case

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The case of Stella Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants— more commonly known as the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit—is often cited as a classic example of frivolous litigation in the United States. In much of the public’s eye, Stella Lieback was a greedy plaintiff who spilled warm coffee on her lap while driving and decided to cash in by suing a big corporation for millions of dollars.

As country singer Toby Keith put it in his song “American Drive”: Spill a cup of coffee, make a million dollars.

The real case, however, isn’t nearly that simple.

Let’s take a look at the facts of this widely misreported and misunderstood personal injury lawsuit.

The background of the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit

On February 27, 1992, Stella Liebeck, 79 years old, purchased a cup of McDonald’s coffee. While sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson’s parked car, she attempted to remove the lid in order to add cream while holding the coffee cup between her knees.

The cup tipped over and the scalding hot coffee poured onto her lap.

How hot was the coffee?

At the time of the incident, all McDonald’s restaurants were required to serve coffee between 180 and 190 degrees. At this temperature, spilled coffee causes third-degree burns in less than 3 seconds.

“Our position was that the product was unreasonably dangerous, and the temperature should have been lower,” Stella’s attorney Kenneth Wagner said.

Most other restaurants serve coffee at 160 degrees, which takes 20 seconds to cause third-degree burns (usually enough time to wipe away the coffee). Home coffee makers typically brew coffee at about 135-150 degrees.

How badly was she burned?

Stella suffered third-degree burns (the most serious and painful kind) on more than 16% of her body, including her inner thighs, genitals, and buttocks where the skin was burned down to the layers of muscle and fatty tissue.

As a result of her burns, Stella had to be hospitalized for 8 days and she required skin grafts and other extensive treatment. Her recovery lasted 2 years.

What’s more, Stella was not alone. At least 700 other people informed McDonald’s that they had been burned by McDonald’s coffee before Stella, yet the company refused to change its policy of keeping coffee 30 degrees hotter than other restaurants and coffee shops.

Why didn’t Stella try to settle the case before filing a lawsuit?

One of the common misconceptions about the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit is that Stella was eager to sue McDonald’s for millions of dollars. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Stella spent 6 months trying to settle with McDonald’s for $20,000 and then $15,000 to help cover her medical expenses, but McDonald’s refused. Instead, McDonald’s offered Stella $800. McDonald’s also refused Stella’s request to lower the temperature of their coffee in order to prevent future injuries to other customers.

Stella Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants lawsuit

Unable to settle, Stella filed a personal injury lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico alleging that McDonald’s was “grossly negligent” for selling coffee that was “unreasonably dangerous.”

Even after filing the lawsuit, Stella’s attorney attempted to settle the case for $90,000, but McDonald’s refused once again.

The trial began on August 8th before New Mexico District Court Judge Robert H. Scott.

Evidence presented at trial showed that McDonald’s required franchisees to keep coffee heated between 180-190 degrees and that the restaurant received more than 700 complaints from customers who were burned as a result of the coffee.

At the end of the trial, the jury awarded Stella $200,000 in compensatory damages (reduced to $160,000 because the jury found her 20% at fault) and $2.7 million in punitive damages (reduced to $480,000 by the judge).

Both parties appealed and the lawsuit was ultimately settled for less than $600,000.

The aftermath of the McDonald’s hot coffee case

After the trial, a small article appeared in the Albuquerque Journal . From there, the story spread like wildfire—becoming less and less accurate as it spread. Even reputable sources like NBC News published articles describing the lawsuit as “the poster child of excessive lawsuits.”

Stella died on August 5, 2004, at the age of 91. Her daughter explained that “the burns and court proceedings took their toll” on her and that Stella had “no quality of life” after the trial, although the settlement at least helped pay for a live-in nurse.

Since the verdict was handed down in 1994, a number of lawsuits have been filed against coffee vendors, including Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Burger King, as a result of coffee-related burns. In most cases, the coffee temperature was not as hot as the coffee in Stella’s case and the plaintiffs were not successful.

Do you remember the McDonald’s hot coffee case? How has your perception of the case changed over the years or after reading this article?

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Reader Interactions

ThePistolHut says

August 26, 2021 at 4:50 am

Your article left out the vicious, potent and expensive PR campaign McD’s implemented to defame and slander Ms. Liebeck in the eyes of the public. Based on various internet comments, that campaign was successful. To this day, much misinformation and hatred circulates about Stella.

Ian Pisarcik says

August 26, 2021 at 6:28 pm

Thanks for the comment.

John Jacobs says

October 9, 2021 at 5:53 pm

Unfortunately, many big business leaders do not evaluate the pros and cons of law suits. In this case the lawyers were trying to show their worth to the company and the leadership stubbornly couldn’t admit one of it’s policies might need to be reviewed and revised.

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The Verdict: How the Hot Coffee Lawsuit Led to Tort Reform

• September 10, 2020
• The Carlson Law Firm
• Personal Injury , Press Room , Safety , The Verdict Podcast

In This Article...

It’s Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants. 

Despite living in the internet age with unlimited access to information and a documentary available for free, 25 years later, the case that was settled on August 18, 1994, remains the subject of speculation and misdirected outrage. The ability of a billion-dollar corporation to control public perception of the case, along with conservative lawmakers accepting billions of dollars from those corporations prompted sweeping changes in American tort law.  

McDonald’s Hot Coffee Lawsuit: The Facts

Once corporations gained control of the story, Stella Liebeck became a newly-minted millionaire grandmother, who got an easy payday. In reality, Stella Liebeck wasn’t looking for a major payday; she was looking for a fair settlement. She wasn’t a litigious woman who only filed the lawsuit against McDonald’s after the company disregarded the severity of her injuries. 

The truth was that she was an elderly woman who endured extremely serious burn injuries to her pelvic region. Her injuries required surgery and skin grafts that cost her around $10,500 in 1994 (about $18,105.63 if adjusted for inflation in 2019). 

Mrs. Liebeck never saw millions, but settled with McDonald’s for an undisclosed amount. According to her children, the undisclosed amount received by their mother went toward caring for her in her final years.

Who was Stella Liebeck?

Stella Liebeck was a 79-year-old woman from Albuquerque, New Mexico. On Feb. 27, 1992, her grandson drove her to the local McDonald’s where she ordered a 49-cent cup of coffee from the drive-through window. Her grandson parked the car to allow Mrs. Liebeck to add cream and sugar to her coffee. The 1989 Ford Probe  Mrs. Liebeck and her grandson were in did not have cup holders. So Mrs. Liebeck, reasonably, placed the cup between her knees to remove the lid and add her cream and sugar. As she did so, the entire cup of coffee spilled on her lap. The cotton pants she was wearing absorbed the hot liquid and held it against her skin. The 180-190° coffee scalded her thighs, buttocks, and groin. She suffered third-degree burns in her pelvic region and required skin grafts. 

Initially, Mrs. Liebeck had no intention to sue. She just wanted McDonald’s to cover her medical bills. Her injuries were so severe that her medical bills amounted to about $10,500 and future medical bills were estimated at approximately $2,500. Mrs. Liebeck’s daughter also sought recovery for her lost income from driving her mother to different hospital visits of income. In total, Mrs. Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald’s for $20,000. 

McDonald’s offered $800. 

Enter attorney Reed Morgan 

The now infamous Hot Coffee Lawsuit began when Mrs. Liebeck sought the help of a personal injury attorney in a law office in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The firm she walked into just so happened to the be law office of an acquaintance familiar with Reed Morgan ’s work on the previous hot liquid spill case. 

At the time, Morgan was a plaintiff’s attorney running his law firm in Houston, Texas. Morgan’s practice emphasized assisting seaman injured as a result of working on vessels. However, he did work in other areas of personal injury law. Because he had settled a case similar to Liebeck’s, Morgan was aware of the long history of McDonald’s hot coffee spills and the related injuries. 

“I thought at the time that whenever you can see a scenario like this where somebody is using a consumer product, and they’re doing something reasonable, it’s foreseeable that they’re going to spill a liquid—whether it’s a cold liquid or a hot liquid,” Morgan said. “I figured that when you wind up with deep third-degree burns and skin grafts, there’s got to be a better way for society to be functioning than buying drinks that are that scalding hot.”

Investigation

He began his research by asking why Liebeck had gotten such deep burns. Through speaking with Dr. Ken Diller at the University of Texas at Austin, he discovered the science of which he based the case against McDonald’s. 

“There was a lot of literature on [skin burns] dating all the way back to World War II,” Morgan said. “So, I learned that it was scientifically proven that there is a time-temperature ratio… the tables will tell you at what temperature how fast the average skin will burn.” 

Once he saw the temperature the coffee was kept in the decanter at McDonald’s, he understood why Mrs. Liebeck had gotten such deep burns. 

What was the science Morgan presented to the jury?

While preparing the hot coffee lawsuit Morgan spoke with expert Dr. Diller. Morgan learned that liquid with a temperature of 180-190° could lead to third-degree burns in as little as two to seven seconds , and especially so if clothing absorbs the liquid. This is the temperature that McDonald’s admitted to keeping their coffee, based on a consultant’s recommendation for optimal taste.

Morgan’s expert on thermodynamics testified that if the coffee had been served at 155°, it would’ve cooled enough to avoid injury.

According to Morgan, consumer studies put the ideal temperature for consumption of coffee between 145-155°. 

“At that temperature, if you were to spill a hot liquid on your bare skin while wearing shorts, you would get a second-degree burn,” Morgan said. 

McDonald’s initially claimed that its customers intended to consume the coffee after they made it to their intended destination. However, the company’s own internal research showed that most of its customers drink coffee while still in their car. 

McDonald’s Hot Coffee and the discovery of the 700 Complaints

During discovery, Morgan and his team found that between 1982 and 1992, McDonald’s received more than 700 reports from consumers burned by their coffee. Reports varied in burn severity, but the company spent about $500,000 settling burn injury claims in those ten years. 

This historical data strengthened Liebeck’s case because 700 complaints show that McDonald’s knew about the dangers of its coffee. Still, the business failed to address the dangerous temperature levels of its coffee. 

What’s so controversial about the Liebeck punitive damages?

After a weeklong trial, the 12-person jury used comparative negligence to find that McDonald’s was 80% at-fault for Mrs. Liebeck’s injuries. They awarded Mrs. Liebeck $200,000 but found her 20% at fault for her injuries thus reducing her award to $160,000. The jury then awarded Mrs. Liebeck another $2.7 million in punitive damages—or the total revenue McDonald’s makes from coffee sales in just two days. Punitive damages are a penalty to ensure that companies change their behavior. In essence, the jury said that Mrs. Liebeck did carry some blame for her injuries because she held the coffee improperly. At the end of the day, if McDonald’s served its coffee at a reasonable temperature, it would have been unlikely that Mrs. Liebeck’s injuries would’ve been so severe.

The parties eventually settled out of court, but the final figure of how much Mrs. Liebeck received is not public knowledge.

Still, it is the $2.7-million verdict that stands out in people’s minds when they think about the McDonald’s Hot Coffee Lawsuit. 

Lawsuits are frivolous until it’s your own

In the mid-1990s, Stella Liebeck’s injuries were largely ignored. The media and lawmakers dismissed the facts of the case in favor of pointing to what they viewed as an outrageous jury award. There are three primary reasons the public remains so misinformed about the Liebeck case include the following: 

• The focus on the jury-awarded punitive damages.
• A concerted political campaign to skew public opinion in favor of tort reform.
• A failure to report the injuries distorted the case in the mind of the public. 

These three elements kickstarted the move toward tort reform through capping damages and continues to aid in the erosion of the 7th Amendment .

What people miss about personal injury lawsuits is that they exist to improve consumer safety. In fact, numerous reports say that the McDonald’s in Albuquerque when Liebeck was burned, now sells its coffee at 158 °. At this temperature, a person who spills the liquid on themselves would suffer third-degree burns in about 60 seconds. This means that the margin of safety has increased as a direct consequence of this case. 

A lesson for attorneys

More than tort reform, there is another reason that attorneys can learn from Liebeck v. McDonald’s. It’s a lesson in media training. 

Morgan says that the one thing he would have done differently in the Hot Coffee Lawsuit is speaking to the media. 

“If I had to redo it, I would have been more accepting of anybody that wanted to do a television interview, so I could get the truth about the science behind it out and what really happened,” Morgan said.

Morgan continues to practice law and is Of Counsel to The Carlson Law Firm . Since the Liebeck case, Morgan’s work has primarily emphasized assisting those who work in the maritime field dealing with life or death illnesses. 

Do you want to hear more from attorney Reed Morgan on the Stella Liebeck case? Check out a bonus episode of The Verdict , our podcast where personal injury meets storytelling.

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Retro Report

Not Just a Hot Cup Anymore

Scalded by coffee, then news media, in 1992, stella liebeck spilled scalding mcdonald’s coffee in her lap and later sued the company, attracting a flood of negative attention. it turns out there was more to the story..

By Hilary Stout

• Oct. 21, 2013

More than 20 years ago, 79-year-old Stella Liebeck ordered coffee at a McDonald’s drive-through in Albuquerque, N.M. She spilled the coffee, was burned, and one year later, sued McDonald’s. The jury awarded her $2.9 million. Her story became a media sensation and fodder for talk-show hosts, late-night comedians, sitcom writers and even political pundits. But cleverness may have come at the expense of context, as this Retro Report video illustrates. And below, a consumer affairs reporter for The Times reflects on how the world has changed since the lawsuit.

It was pretty much a pre-Starbucks world.

Back in February 1992, when Stella Liebeck ordered the 8-ounce cup of McDonald’s coffee that would famously spill and turn her, briefly, into a court-made millionaire — until the amount, the video reports, was lowered to about $500,000 — we were not the coffee culture we would become.

For those seeking reforms in the legal system since a jury tried to award Ms. Liebeck $2.9 million for the third-degree burns she suffered from the spill, little has changed despite efforts to cap multimillion-dollar verdicts like her original amount.

But when it comes down to the morning brew at the center of the case, a lot has transpired in the two decades since the lawsuit caused such an uproar.

We have become a society that totes hot liquids everywhere. Our palms seem to be permanently attached to an elongated cup with a plastic lid.

This is partly a matter of growth and supply. The number of Starbucks stores in the United States has swelled from 146 in 1992, mostly in the Northwest, to 10,924 all last year, in cities, strip malls and small towns throughout the country. (There are six in my one-square-mile ZIP code on the Upper West Side of Manhattan alone and a seventh is opening soon.)

The point is, the world now caters to the coffee drinker. The idea of getting into a car without cup holders and lifting the lid off the cup in order to add milk and sugar and drink the coffee, as the facts of the case show Ms. Liebeck did that morning, seems strangely anachronistic.

Within the ensuing years, some genius invented a sculptured lid with a little sipping hole in the top, eliminating the need to open the cup and reducing the potential for spills. Sloshing grew less likely once the lip was raised above the cup rim.

Let’s not forget the evolution of the cup holder. Teams of car engineers continuously work to perfect their design for drivers in the front and those passengers two rows back.

Coffee technology has definitely come a long way.

We now have that little cardboard thing that goes around the disposable cup so you can hold a cup of hot coffee without discomfort. (It actually has a name: the zarf, and one Jay Sorenson is said to have invented it in 1993 and he holds a patent on it under the trademark Java Jacket. Now multiple companies make them.)

Berry Plastics, a company based in Evansville, Ind., that manufactures cold-drink cups for fast-food vendors, including McDonald’s and Starbucks (they’re the ones who created those clear plastic cups with the dome tops for Frappuccinos), recently got into the hot-drink business by developing a “fully recyclable thermal management packaging solution.” In other words, a cup.

But not just any cup. This one — called Versalite, with 20 patents pending, and currently being tested in several markets — is a disposable cup that insulates the liquid to keep hot coffee from cooling but also to keep the cup from feeling hot to the touch. “We’ve known for a long time that there’s been a need for a better insulating cup,” said Jon Rich, president and chief executive of Berry Plastics. (Incidentally, the Versalite cup performs the same function for cold drinks.)

Not to mention the variety of insulated, metal refillable travel mugs, with any number of push-button, sliding openings from which to sip a hot or cold brew.

But all of this means we are even more lackadaisical about the potentially scalding liquid we carry. We nonchalantly sip coffee over babies, while pushing them in strollers (and stow them in the holders intended for bottles and sippy cups). We jostle one another on crowded subways and buses while clutching our coffee cups. We take them to class, carry them through stores, in libraries. Museums seem to be one of the few places that forbid them.

Sure, warnings, then and now, are plastered all over cups and tops: “Careful, the beverage you are about to enjoy is extremely hot,” says the Starbucks cup. “Caution Contents Hot,” says the lid. “Caution Handle with Care I’m Hot,” says the McDonald’s cup.

Nevertheless, an average of 80 people a year are hospitalized for coffee and tea scaldings at the William Randolph Hearst Burn Center at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, said Dr. Robert W. Yurt, the chief of the division of burns, critical care and trauma. Seventy percent of them were children under 6 years old, he said, though the majority of those accidents occurred at home.

During the Liebeck court proceedings, McDonald’s said it served its coffee between 180 and 190 degrees. The company has refused to disclose today’s standard temperature, but Retro Report shows a handbook for franchisees calling for temperatures 10 degrees lower.

At my local Starbucks, I asked the young barista who took my order (grande 1 percent latte) how hot the store brews its coffee. “We brew it at 200 degrees,” she said. (That is also the standard recommended by the Specialty Coffee Association of America.)

But the serving temperature is lower than McDonald’s was back then. “We let it sit for a half-hour,” she continued, “so it is about 170 or 180 when we serve it.”

These days, with so many choices on the coffee menu, customers may be more protected today from a scalding by inadvertent shields. In 1992, little in the way of milky coffee drinks was available that would act to drop the temperature a few degrees.

After all, the word “latte” — whether whole, skim or soy — had yet to become part of the mass lexicon.

This week’s Retro Report is the 16th in a documentary series. The video project was started with a grant from Christopher Buck. Retro Report has a staff of 13 journalists and 10 contributors led by Kyra Darnton, a former “60 Minutes” producer. It is a nonprofit video news organization that aims to provide a thoughtful counterweight to today’s 24/7 news cycle. The videos are typically 10 to 14 minutes long.

Previous Retro Reports can be found here ( articles and videos) or here (videos only).

Visit the Retro Report Web site here .

Booming: Living Through the Middle Ages offers news and commentary about baby boomers, anchored by Michael Winerip . Sign up for our weekly newsletter here . You may also follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming . Our e-mail is [email protected] .

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A New Documentary Looks Back At A Famous Cup Of McDonald's 'Hot Coffee'

Linda Holmes

The new documentary Hot Coffee presents filmmaker Susan Saladoff's impassioned arguments on four aspects of the civil justice system. HBO hide caption

The new documentary Hot Coffee presents filmmaker Susan Saladoff's impassioned arguments on four aspects of the civil justice system.

Question: What do you think is the most famous lawsuit of the last 50 years that didn't involve an already-famous person?

My guess is that it might be the case of Stella Liebeck. If Stella's name doesn't ring a bell, maybe "McDonald's coffee" does.

The Liebeck case became a legend largely because the narrative that became popular had three basic elements that people quite reasonably found galling in combination: (1) A trivial injury (spilling coffee on yourself); (2) resulting from a ridiculously foolish act (driving with a cup of coffee between your legs), for which (3) someone set out to get rich (the jury awarded Stella $2.9 million).

Airing tonight at 9:00 p.m. on HBO, the new documentary Hot Coffee argues, among other things, that all three of those elements of the popular narrative were fundamentally false. It shows gasp-inducing photographs of Liebeck's third-degree burns, which required hospitalization and multiple skin grafts; it clarifies that she (in the passenger seat) and her grandson (in the driver's seat) were parked in the McDonald's parking lot, and were not driving, when the coffee spilled; and it extensively quotes Liebeck's attorney and family on the fact that her initial request to McDonald's was merely to have them pay the part of her out-of-pocket medical expenses that weren't covered by Medicare.

(As a side note, it's also interesting to hear Liebeck's daughter say that when it first happened, the family assumed that in order for the spill to inflict the injuries it did, the pot must have malfunctioned or been cranked up higher than it was supposed to be, so they didn't anticipate that having the company cover her medical expenses would be particularly controversial. They sort of assumed that third-degree burns would be evidence that something wasn't done the way it was meant to be done, which didn't turn out to be so.)

There are other aspects of the Liebeck case that are explored in the film — which played at last week's Silverdocs festival in Silver Spring, Md. — including the fact that the judge reduced the award and the problems the jury had with some of the testimony McDonald's provided. But the aim of filmmaker Susan Saladoff is, at least in part, to offer a counterargument to a narrative she believes has fundamentally changed the way people perceive the civil justice system, in spite of the fact that it isn't what actually happened.

Understand: Saladoff is an advocate, and she was, when she presented the film at Silverdocs, clear and unapologetic about the fact that Hot Coffee is an opinionated argument, not a dispassionate recitation of facts. She's trained as a litigator herself, and she's angry about the four topics she tackles here: false (or partly false, or exaggerated) narratives about particular lawsuits, legislative caps on the damages an injured person can collect notwithstanding the extent of the injury, the influencing of judicial elections in order to have those legislative caps upheld in court, and the use of mandatory arbitration in consumer and employment contracts.

She's also a brand-new filmmaker, and that shows in the simplicity of the presentation. This isn't a documentary that's made with any particular effort at cinematic style — and the good news about that is that HBO is as good a place to see it as any. (Even before I learned that Hot Coffee would be airing on TV, I would have told you it looked like TV.)

There are a lot of pieces to the Liebeck case alone, and the misunderstandings of the facts are not all there is to it. Not everyone who fully understands the facts of the case agrees that she should have recovered anything — some judges have thrown out similar cases, and some juries haven't awarded damages in similar cases. But it is true that seeing the film makes the case look different than it does if you are under the impression she was flying down the highway with a teetering cup of coffee in her lap.

Showing the pictures of Liebeck's burns doesn't suddenly resolve all debate over the case. But if people are going to have strong opinions about whether she should have collected anything and what that means about how courts work (which many people do), at least Hot Coffee gives them an opportunity to base those opinions on the original story, rather than on jokes from Seinfeld , which can happen when a case becomes such a fable that the perception of it is based on the equivalent of tenth-generation photocopies of what actually happened.

Saladoff told the Silverdocs audience of Hot Coffee , "It's my truth." Indeed, there are other people who undoubtedly would (and do) make other arguments from the same sets of facts. But when the maker of a documentary is straightforward about the fact that she's staking out a position, it's kind of refreshing: When you know that, you don't walk out of the theater thinking you've supposedly been presented with every argument. This is just her argument, and she offers her evidence to support it. What you do with it, and the degree to which you are persuaded, is up to you.

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Two cases decided 25 years apart, but there were some facts in common: a hot drink, a consumer alleging that she was burned by the drink, and a lawsuit. These are the facts of the 1994 case  Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants  that resulted in an award of millions to the consumer, but also the facts from  Shih v. Starbucks , a case decided last year. In  Shih , however, the court found in favor of the product supplier. What’s different about these cases? The answer: how the courts interpreted proximate cause.

In 1994,  Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants  sparked a nationwide tort reform debate after a jury found McDonald’s liable for a consumer’s injuries after she spilled McDonald’s coffee on herself. At the time, many commentators predicted a wave of frivolous lawsuits and large judgments against businesses. But 25 years later, those predictions have not materialized. While consumers continue to sue, the doctrine of proximate cause limits the liability that businesses face from claims for injuries related to hot drinks.

Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants

In 1992, Stella Liebeck bought a cup of hot coffee from a McDonald’s drive-through in New Mexico. While parked, she placed the cup of coffee between her legs and attempted to peel the cap off. The coffee spilled and Ms. Liebeck sustained second- and third-degree burns.

Liebeck sued McDonald’s, alleging that the hot coffee was defectively manufactured, that it violated the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, and that the defect caused her injuries. At trial, Liebeck’s attorneys offered evidence that McDonald’s asked franchisees to brew coffee at 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit. Additionally, the attorneys offered evidence that McDonald’s had received more than 700 reports of burns resulting from coffee spills out of billions of hot coffees sold during the time period.

The jury ruled in favor of Liebeck and awarded her compensatory damages of $200,000 and punitive damages of $2.7 million. But the jury determined that Liebeck was 20 percent at fault for her own injuries, and the court reduced the punitive award significantly, resulting in compensatory damages of $160,000 and punitive damages of $480,000.

Shih v. Starbucks

Shih v. Starbucks  presents a similar set of facts, but with a different outcome. In June 2016, Tina Shih went to Starbucks with a friend, and each ordered a hot tea. Each tea was given to Shih in a double-cup – one full cup placed within an empty cup. Neither cup had a sleeve. Shih carried both teas to her table and sat down.

Shih claimed that because the cup of tea was filled to the top and was very hot, she did not want to lift it. Instead, she pulled the lid off the cup and moved her chair back to sip from the cup while it was on the table. Shih pushed her chair back to lean over the cup, lost her balance, and put her hand on the table to steady herself – causing the hot tea to spill in her lap. Shih sustained second-degree burns from the incident.

Shih sued Starbucks. She alleged that the double-cup without a sleeve was a manufacturing defect, which – combined with the cup being filled to the brim with hot tea – caused her injuries. Starbucks moved for summary judgment on Shih’s claims, arguing that Shih could not prove the alleged manufacturing defect proximately caused her injuries. The court agreed, granted Starbucks’s motion, and entered judgment in favor of Starbucks. In 2020, the appeals court affirmed.

Proximate Cause is Key the Difference

The differences between  Liebeck  and  Shih  are the litigants’ defect claims and their respective theories of proximate causation. The proximate cause inquiry examines the relationship between the defendant’s alleged conduct and the plaintiff’s injury: if the defendant’s conduct is too attenuated from the consumer’s injuries, the defendant cannot be held liable for those injuries. Proximate cause exists when the defect in question increased the risk of harm to the consumer, and the consumer sustained injuries resulting from the increased risk. Courts generally test proximate cause by looking at whether the harm was a foreseeable result of the defect – meaning the business could reasonably have predicted the harm.

Liebeck’s attorneys successfully argued that the  coffee  was defective because it was served too hot and that the excessively hot temperature put Liebeck at an increased risk of burns. Liebeck established proximate cause by showing that her burn injuries were a foreseeable result of the alleged defect – the coffee being served very hot.

Shih could not establish proximate cause because the court held that the alleged defect was too attenuated from her injuries. Shih’s attorneys argued that the  lack of a cup sleeve  and the  fact that the hot tea was full  made it defective. Specifically, Shih would not have removed the tea lid, leaned forward, moved her chair, lost her balance and grabbed the table – causing it to wobble and spill the tea on her – if Starbucks had given her a cup sleeve or not filled the cup to the brim.

The court held that the alleged defect did not increase the risk of Shih being burned or otherwise injured by the hot tea; therefore, the defect was not the proximate cause of her injuries. The lack of a sleeve and the fullness of the tea did not increase Shih’s risk of losing her balance “while attempting to execute [this] kind of unorthodox drinking maneuver,” and spilling the tea on herself. The court’s use of “unorthodox” illustrates that, in the court’s view, Shih’s injuries were not a foreseeable result of the alleged defect. The court noted that while it is foreseeable that consumers could lose their balance and spill their drinks, losing one’s balance is not “within the scope of the risk” created by Starbucks’ decision to use a double cup and to fill the cup to the brim. Thus, Shih could not prove Starbucks’ actions proximately caused her injuries.

Twenty-five years after  Liebeck  sparked a national conversation about hot coffee and corporate liability,  Shih  demonstrates that courts continue to follow public policy limitations like proximate cause to protect businesses from unforeseeable consumer injuries.

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The McDonald's Coffee Case: The Real Facts

The 1992 court case commonly known as the McDonald’s Hot Coffee case may still be the most misquoted court case of all time.

As a personal injury lawyer since 1985, I feel like I've had to explain and even defend that case my whole legal career. In a nutshell, it's a case about a nice old lady who was out for a drive with her grandson, who suffered horrific burn injuries to her private parts and was then unjustly vilified by big business and the insurance industry.

What are the real facts of the case?

Here are some real facts that you probably didn't know: This nice old lady had a name, but you never hear it. Her name was Stella Liebeck. She was 79 years old when the accident happened. Here's a photo of her:

Stella was out for a ride with her grandson when they went to the McDonald's Drive-Thru to get some coffee and breakfast. Stella was sitting in the passenger's seat of the 1989 Ford Probe which did not have cup holders. After receiving their order her grandson pulled into a parking spot at the McDonald's. They were parked when this happened.

Stella held the cup of coffee in her lap and attempted to remove the top in order to add cream and sugar. (McDonald's doesn't add cream and sugar, you have to do it yourself). The top of the coffee popped off and the scalding liquid poured into her lap, soaking into the cotton sweatpants she was wearing, causing her to suffer severe and excruciatingly painful third-degree burns to her groin, thighs, and buttocks. She jumped out of the car while trying to remove her burning sweatpants and went into shock due to the pain. Her grandson rushed her to the nearest emergency room.

Stella underwent multiple surgical skin graft surgeries and was initially in the hospital for eight days. Her burn doctor recommended she not leave the hospital, but after eight days she was afraid of the mounting bills and worried that couldn't afford it. When it all was said and done, her medical bills were almost $200,000.

I was going to include a photo of Stella's burns in this article, but they are too disturbing to look at. During her recuperation Stella lost 20 pounds (nearly 20 percent of her total body weight), reducing her to a mere 83 pounds. After she left the hospital she needed full-time care for three weeks, she suffered permanent disfigurement to her lower body, and was partially disabled for two years.

What facts did the public hear about the case?

The headlines from this trial made Stella out to be a villain. One television anchor reported that Stella was " awarded 2.9 million dollars" simply because "her coffee was too hot", as if it was something she had undeservedly won on a game show. She became the ridicule of all the late-night talk shows. There was a media frenzy about how unfair this was to McDonald's and what a greedy crook Stella was. The case became the poster child of a massive "tort reform" movement by big business and the insurance industry to stop what they called "frivolous lawsuits". To this day people still use "the McDonald's coffee case" to refer to any case where the plaintiff receives a large verdict. In short, it was a publicity bonanza for big business and the insurance industry.

Was Stella Liebeck a greedy plaintiff?

There is no evidence that Stella Liebeck was a greedy plaintiff. In fact, the evidence showed just the opposite. The facts are that Stella had never filed a lawsuit before in her life, and she didn’t want to file this lawsuit, but McDonald’s refused to help her pay any of her medical bills.

Before the trial, a court mediator suggested that a fair settlement of the case would be $225,000 but McDonald's refused to settle. I should point out that McDonald's, which is a billion-dollar worldwide corporation, did at one point make a settlement offer of $800.

Did McDonald's do anything wrong?

McDonald's lost the case on August 18, 1994. In fact, McDonald's lost big time. Since McDonald's refused to settle the case, it went to trial and an impartial jury (who had probably all enjoyed a meal at McDonald's) listened carefully to the evidence put on by Stella's lawyer and by the team of corporate lawyers from McDonald's.

Here is what the evidence showed: · McDonald’s had over 700 prior coffee burn claims filed against it before Stella's claim and the corporation was well aware that its coffee was burning people all over the country. It had already paid out over $500,000 due to prior burn injuries. · McDonald’s intentionally heated their coffee up to 190 degrees Fahrenheit despite the fact that it knew other restaurants only heated coffee to a safer temperature of about 160 Fahrenheit. McDonald’s coffee was so scalding hot it was capable of burning your skin right off your body, as well as causing muscle and bone damage, in just 2 seconds. · McDonald’s tactic, in this case, was to blame Stella for her injuries claiming she didn’t take her pants off fast enough when the coffee spilled on her. It also argued that "Mrs. Liebeck's age may have caused her injuries to have been worse than they might have been in a younger individual," since older people’s skin is thinner. · During the case McDonald's own quality assurance manager was forced to admit that the corporation was well aware of the risk of serving dangerously hot coffee, but stated the corporation still wasn’t going to do anything about it. After careful deliberation, the jury found McDonald's liable because the jury believed McDonald's had engaged in "willful, reckless, and malicious conduct". The jurors rendered a punitive damage award of 2.7 million dollars against McDonald’s. (This was the equivalent of just two days of coffee sales. At that time McDonald's Corporation generated revenues in excess of 1.3 million dollars a day just from the sale of its coffee, selling 1 billion cups each year.)

What happened in the end?

When the jury verdict came out McDonald's and their giant insurance company and the industrial media machine behind them used this case to make it look like juries were out of control and that people were filing frivolous lawsuits to become millionaires.

McDonald’s team of high-paid lawyers appealed the jury's verdict and the 2.7 million dollar verdict was lowered to just $480,000. After paying her attorney’s fees, trial costs, and her medical bills, Stella was left with very little. Stella died on August 5, 2004, at the age of 91. According to her daughter, "the burns and court proceedings (had taken) their toll" on her, and in the years following the case her mother had "no quality of life". Needless to say, the McDonald's Corporation and their lawyers have all gone on to make a fortune. The humble jury in Albuquerque New Mexico who heard the evidence and decided this historic case was mad at McDonald’s because of its callous attitude and total disregard for the safety of its customers. But the McDonald's corporate money turned the narrative into quite a different tale that you still hear about in this case today, “This lady spilled coffee on herself and become a millionaire.”

Epilogue: Despite knowing its coffee is hurting people all over the country, McDonald's has not reduced the service temperature of its coffee and sells it at temperatures up to 194 degrees.

For more facts, go to any of these links:

• New York Times Video
• Consumer Attorneys of California
• Hot Coffee Documentary

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McDonald’s sued over hot coffee spill three decades after landmark case

Mable childress, 85, allegedly suffered severe burns after she was handed a coffee cup with a loose lid, article bookmarked.

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A San Francisco McDonald’s is being sued by a customer in her 80s who was allegedly refused help after suffering severe burns from a “scalding coffee ” that spilt in her lap.

Three decades after McDonald’s was sued over a spilt hot coffee in a landmark case , Mable Childress filed a lawsuit for physical pain and emotional distress suffered in the 13 June incident.

Ms Childress, 85, alleged in the lawsuit filed in the San Francisco Superior Court that drive-thru staff at the fast food chain handed her a coffee cup with a loose lid.

When she tried to take a sip, the lid came off and she was allegedly drenched over her legs, groin and stomach with the hot beverage.

She tried to report the incident and speak to the manager, but alleges that staff at the Fillmore St McDonald’s “refused to help her”.

After an hour trying to get assistance, Ms Childress took herself to an emergency room where she was treated for first and second-degree burns, her attorney Dylan Hackett told The Independent.

Mr Hackett said his client was “doing better” now, but is still receiving treatment for her injuries three months on.

Ms Childress is seeking unspecified damages against the fast-food giant for physical pain and emotional distress.

McDonald’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Independent.

Franchise owner-operator Peter Ou told The Independent in an email that the restaurant had strict safety protocols to ensure lids on hot beverages are secure.

“We take every customer complaint seriously — and when Ms Childress reported her experience to us later that day, our employees and management team spoke to her within a few minutes and offered assistance. We’re reviewing this new legal claim in detail,” Mr Ou said.

In 1992, Stella Liebeck sued McDonald’s after sustaining third-degree burns when a hot coffee spilt in her lap at a restaurant in New Mexico.

A jury awarded her nearly $3m in punitive and compensatory damages after she required skin grafts from the coffee.

The case led to nationwide calls to reform tort laws to make it harder for plaintiffs to sue.

Mr Hackett told The Independent the lawsuit hadn’t figured into Ms Childress’ lawsuit, as the circumstances in both cases were different.

In July, a Florida jury awarded $800,000 to the family of Olivia Caraballo after she received second-degree burns from a Chicken McNugget that fell on her leg in 2019.

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Legal Myths: The McDonald’s “Hot Coffee” Case

In 1992 Stella Liebeck, a 79-year old retired sales clerk, bought a 49-cent cup of coffee from a drive-through McDonald’s in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She was in the passenger seat of a car driven by her grandson. Ms. Liebeck placed the cup between her legs and removed the lid to add cream and sugar when the hot coffee spilled out on her lap causing third-degree burns on her groin, inner thighs and buttocks.

This infamous case [1] has become a leading rallying point for those advocating restrictions on the ability of consumers to use the U.S. civil justice system to hold corporations accountable for the injuries they cause. A New Mexico jury awarded Ms. Liebeck $160,000 in compensatory damages and $2.7 million in punitive damages and, in an instant, the media and legal communities were up in arms. Newspaper headlines such as “Hot cup of coffee costs $2.9 million,” [2] or “Coffee Spill Burns Woman; Jury Awards $2.9 Million” [3] painted the picture of a “runaway jury,” an unreasonable award and a perverted system of justice. However, both the media and those who want to take away consumers’ legal rights conveniently overlooked the facts of the case, creating a “legal myth,” a poster-case for corporate entities with a vested interest in limiting the legal rights of consumers.

A detailed look at the facts of this case reveal that in light of McDonalds’ actions, the awards were justified:

• By its own corporate standards, McDonald’s sells coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit. A scientist testifying for McDonald’s argued that any coffee hotter than 130 degrees could produce third degree burns. However, a doctor testifying on behalf of Ms. Liebeck noted that it takes less than three seconds to produce a third degree burn at 190 degrees. [4]
• During trial, McDonald’s admitted that it had known about the risk of serious burns from its coffee for more than 10 years. From 1982 to 1992, McDonald’s received more than 700 reports of burns from scalding coffee; some of the injured were children and infants. Many customers received severe burns to the genital area, perineum, inner thighs and buttocks. [5] In addition, many of these claims were settled, amounting to more than $500,000. [6]
• Witnesses for McDonald’s testified that consumers were not aware of the extent of danger from coffee spills served at the company’s required temperature. McDonald’s admitted it did not warn customers and could offer no explanation as to why it did not. [7]
• As a result of her injuries, Ms. Liebeck spent eight days in a hospital. In that time she underwent expensive treatments for third-degree burns including debridement (removal of dead tissue) and skin grafting. The burns left her scarred and disabled for more than two years. [8] Before a suit was ever filed, Liebeck informed McDonald’s about her injuries and asked for compensation for her medical bills, which totaled almost $11,000. [9] McDonald’s countered with a ludicrously low $800 offer.
• McDonald’s had several other chances to settle the case before trial: At one point, Liebeck’s attorney offered to settle for $300,000. [10] In addition, days before the trial, the judge ordered both sides into a mediated settlement conference where the mediator, a retired judge, recommended that McDonald’s settle for $225,000. [11]   McDonald’s refused all attempts to settle the case.

The Findings

The jury found that Ms. Liebeck suffered $200,000 in compensatory damages for her medical costs and disability. The award was reduced to $160,000 since the jury determined that 20 percent of the fault for the injury belonged with Ms. Liebeck for spilling the coffee. [12]

Based on its finding that McDonald’s had engaged in willful, reckless, malicious or wanton conduct, the jury then awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages; essential to the size of the award was the fact that at the time McDonald’s made $1.35 million in coffee sales daily. [13]

Since the purposes of awarding punitive damages are to punish the person or company doing the wrongful act and to discourage him and others from similar conduct in the future, the degree of punishment or deterrence resulting from a judgment is in proportion to the wealth of the guilty person. [14] Punitive damages are supposed to be large enough to send a message to the wrongdoer; limited punitive awards when applied to wealthy corporations, means the signal they are designed to send will not be heard. The trial court refused to grant McDonald’s a retrial, finding that its behavior was “callous.” The judge, however, announced in open court a few days after the trial that he would reduce the punitive damages award to $480,000. [15] Both sides appealed the decision.

Before the appeals could be heard the parties reached an out-of-court agreement for an undisclosed amount of money. As part of this settlement, McDonald’s demanded that no one could release the details of the case. [16]

Based on the facts, Corporate America’s and much of the media’s trivial portrayal of the case is deceptive and disgraceful. They have painted a misleading picture of a “legal horror story” when in fact, the case demonstrates a legal system that punishes corporations for misconduct and protects consumers who may be victims of their wrongdoing.

Note: The nature of the private settlement and lack of public court documents resulted in the use of primarily newspaper sources.

November 30, 1999

[1] .     Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants , No. CV-93-02419, 1995 (N.M. Dist. Aug. 18, 1994).

[2] . “ Hot cup of coffee costs $2.9 million; Damages awarded to woman scalded at McDonald’s.” The Orange County Register, Aug. 19, 1994, at C1.

[3] .    “Coffee Spill Burns Woman; Jury Awards $2.9 Million,” Wall Street Journal, Aug. 19, 1994, at B3.

[4] .    Gerlin, Andrea, “A Matter of Degree: How a Jury Decided McDonald’s Should Pay a Woman Millions for a Hot-Coffee Spill,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 1, 1994, at A1.

[5] .     Morgan, S. Reed, “Verdict Against McDonald’s is Fully Justified,” The National Law Journal, Vol. 17 No. 8;  Oct. 24, 1996 , at A2 0.

[6] .    Gerlin, supra note 4, at A4.

[7] .    Morgan, S. Reed, “McDonald’s Burned Itself,” The Legal Times, Sept. 19, 1994, pg. 26.

[8] .    Morgan, supra note 5, at A20.

[9] .    Sherowski, Elizabeth, “Hot Coffee, Cold Cash: Making the Most of Alternative Dispute Resolution in High Stakes Personal Injury Lawsuits,” 11 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. 521, 1996.

[10] “McDonald’s Settles Lawsuit of Woman Burned by Coffee,” Liability Week, Vol. 9 No. 47;  Dec. 5, 1994 .    

[11] . Gerlin, supra note 4, at A4.

[12]     Morgan,  supra note 5, at A20.

[13] . Morgan, supra note 7, pg. 26.

[14] . § 908 (a); § 908 (e) Punitive Damages, Restatement of the Law, Second, Torts , American Law Institute (1979)

[15] . Morgan, supra note 5, pg. 26.

[16] . Howard, Theresa, “McDonald’s Settles Coffee Suit in Out-of-Court Agreement,” Nation’s Restaurant News, Dec. 12, 1994, pg. 1.

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McDonald’s coffee too hot for human consumption, N.J. man says in lawsuit

A New Jersey man has filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s in Swedesboro, claiming he was injured at the drive-thru window when a worker spilled coffee on him that he says was too hot for human consumption.

Joseph Megara, 49, of Woolwich, claims in court papers he was injured and his car interior damaged about 7:30 a.m. Jan. 24 at the McDonald’s in the 1700 block of Center Square Road.

McDonald’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed May 10 in Superior Court of Gloucester County.

The McDonald’s worker is accused of acting negligently and causing the cup of hot coffee to spill on Megara’s lap, according to the lawsuit. Megara suffered “severe injury” and damage to the vehicle’s interior, the suit says.

The suit seeks to hold McDonald’s accountable for “serving coffee heated to a temperature that was unfit for human consumption and dangerous.” Megara claims he lost time from work, and incurred expenses to repair and clean the inside of his vehicle.

The lawsuit is the latest in a string of claims against the fast-food chain alleging injuries due to excessively hot beverages.

In January, a 58-year-old Morris County woman claimed she was injured when hot tea spilled on her at the McDonald’s in the 200 block of Route 10 East in Roxbury Township.

In November, a 74-year-old Essex County woman claimed she suffered burns when the lid popped off a tea cup at a McDonald’s in Newark.

On Sept. 25, a Hudson County woman filed a lawsuit claiming she suffered burns resulting in scarring after she purchased hot coffee at the McDonald’s in the 3000 block of John F. Kennedy Boulevard in Union City.

That lawsuit was filed 11 days after an 85-year-old woman sued a McDonald’s in San Francisco, claiming the lid on her cup wasn’t fastened properly and she was burned when the coffee spilled all over her car.

In 1992, a woman in Albuquerque, New Mexico, successfully sued a McDonald’s franchise when she was burned by a coffee spill. In that lawsuit, the woman’s attorneys successfully argued that McDonald’s served its coffee up to 30 degrees hotter than other restaurants.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at [email protected] . Follow him on X @TonyAttrino . Find NJ.com on Facebook .

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