Remember the hot coffee case? Everyone shook their head at that one. But those who have seen the documentary, along with the graphic pictures of what the unreasonably hot coffee did, might think differently now.

Yeah, this sounds ridiculous, but I’ll reserve judgement until I know more details.

The plaintiffs were asking for around $15M!

Like the hot coffee, it does sound crazy without more details. I’ve bought McD’s McNuggets for our grandkids that, in our experience, are never hot enough to burn. Coffee, OTOH, is more of a no-brainer.

We were sued for an ”incident“ at a commercial property we owned…a burger place. The person sued for pain and suffering when the City made us relocate an ADA parking space. Apparently he was not happy ”his” parking space had been changed. That case was dismissed. There have been other incidents that were pretty nutty. Not that there aren’t plenty of legitimate reasons to sue, but some people will truly try anything.

ETA - My husband did some research online regarding the guy in the ADA parking space case. We found numerous lawsuits he’d filed for various ADA parking space issues.

FOAS, Ive seen that documentary. That woman had signiicant injuries. Norestaurant should be handing outanything as hot as that. She deserved compensation.

What happened to a parent cautioning the child that the food is hot, then teaching the kid to blow on it to cool it off, then the parent trying it to their lips before giving it to the kid? Personal responsibility, anyone?

From what i just read, the mother picked up a bag at the drive thru, reached across to secure the bag and a nugget fell onto her 4-year-old daughter’s thigh, giving her a 2nd degree burn. The nuggets should have been in a box, so the restaurant was found liable. The child is now 8 and still has a scar, which she now plans to have removed.

“Personal responsibility, anyone?”

I agree it’s easy to think about that. Again, I don’t know the details. You’d think after the hot coffee case everything even barely warm would have a warning. Even with that, there could likely be a lawsuit. I have no idea about Upchurch Foods but clearly McD’s has deep pockets.

We also had someone try to sue for $2M for a fall more than two years after it supposedly happened. First, the statute in CA at the time was two years. Second, the person had no proof/documentation when or where the ”fall” even happened. I swear there are people who spend their days trying to see how far they can go with something.

The problem is that the US has far too many personal injury lawyers who do work on a contingent fee basis. They even advertize on TV. There's nothing to lose to file suit when they think a grievance can result in a settlement from the defendant or its insurance carrier.

In most other countries, the prevailing party in a lawsuit is entitled to reimbursement of costs. Meaning, plaintiff lawsuits are reduced and the frivolous ones are not brought because when a suit is found to be without merit and dismissed, the loser has to reimburse the target's legal fees.

$15MM is an arbitrarily high starting number. I sued someone once and the initial number was so unimportant that I have no recollection what it was.

I’m curious about this case now. What I’m reading in USA Today does not reference the stray nugget.

“The lawsuit, filed by Olivia's parents, Philana Holmes and Humberto Caraballo Estevez, claimed Olivia suffered second-degree burns when a hot Chicken McNugget fell on her leg while sitting in the backseat of her mother's car in a McDonald's drive-thru.

“Holmes testified that when the nugget fell on Olivia's leg, she screamed in pain, and when Holmes pulled over in a parking lot, she realized the nugget was lodged between the girl's thigh and the seat belt, according to the Associated Press.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/07/20/mcdonalds-lawsuit-hot-chicken-nugget/70436203007/

Regarding the hot coffee incident. I saw the documentary, what happened to that woman was horrible, not to mention all of the publicity against here, paid for by Mc Donald public relations.

Many years ago, i worked near a McDonalds and would get a med coffee. it sat on my desk for way over an hour until it was cool enough to drink. It was ridiculous.

I found the following regarding the hot coffee case. Stella Liebeck was the plaintiff and her burns were very bad. The mention of continued lawsuits in this quote isn’t the least bit surprising, even with printed warnings.

“Since Liebeck, McDonald's has not reduced the service temperature of its coffee. McDonald's current policy is to serve coffee at 176–194 °F (80–90 °C),[39] relying on more sternly worded warnings on cups made of rigid foam to avoid future liability, though it continues to face lawsuits over hot coffee.”

That woman who was burned by the coffee required surgery, IIRC. It was definitely not frivolous, despite the media attention that made it seem so. I imagine this case isn't much different. I also seem to recall her main reason for suing was to stop MacDonald's from injuring others with their coffee, rather than for personal gain.

What would it be like if we didn't have the ability to bring a personal injury lawsuit? When harmed through no fault of their own, people should be able to seek recourse, and bad players deserve consequences.

Just checked, MacDonald's yearly revenue is over $23 billion - this is not a huge amount of money, from that perspective.

And I'm thinking stores might institute better practices after this.

" MacDonald's yearly revenue is over $23 billion - this is not a huge amount of money, from that perspective. "

So McDonald's size is a factor in your mind concerning its culpability and financial liability for a customer's mistake? I can't imagine how or why.

Accidents happen. The coffee was dropped. That's not on McDonalds. Adults are responsible for the child in their charge. How they decided a burn was worth millions is incomprehensible. I think the judge that agreed to hear this case should be fired.

The nuggets should have been in a box

An interesting nugget of information. If McDonald's store policy (I don't know whether it is or it isn't) is to have nuggets packaged in a box, especially if this is policy for safety reasons, and this particular store did not in fact have the nuggets packaged this way, whether or not one thinks there is additional negligence on the part of the parent, it does seem that the departure from policy, if that is what happened, seems to show some negligence on the part of the store.

Tell me I'm wrong .....

You certainly have presented an interesting thread. But I do think that while it is true that everyone should realize hot food is hot, every case is different and details such as packaging can be important. I myself would not automatically condemn either side, without considering the particulars.

And the negligence in the coffee case was that the coffee was heated to such an extremely high temperature that it would burn someone so badly they wound up in the hospital.

What if someone had had taken a sip, instead of spilling it? The lady spilled it in her lap!

Also, wasn't the coffee in a thinner, more flexible type of cup, which "buckled" as the woman received it from the drive thru? I seem to remember that McDonald's switched over to a foam-like, sturdier cup after that incident.

@arcy_gw wrote; ”I think the judge that agreed to hear this case should be fired.”

Do you have any idea how law suits have bought attention to problems that can affect people? Policy changes often happen quicker when people (organizations and companies) are held responsible.

Sueing over hot "food"?....a better case would be for claiming that it's food. Nuggets, nyuk.

Just an FYI regarding the hot coffee case; this is how it happened. It does sound bad but you seriously have to wonder about common sense.

Liebeck ordered a 49-cent cup of coffee from the drive-through window of a McDonald's restaurant at 5001 Gibson Boulevard Southeast in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Liebeck was in the passenger's seat of a 1989 Ford Probe, which did not have cup holders. Her grandson parked so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. She placed the coffee cup between her knees and pulled the far side of the lid toward her to remove it.[10] In the process, she spilled the entire cup of coffee on her lap.[11] Liebeck was wearing cotton sweatpants, which absorbed the coffee and held it against her skin, scalding her thighs, buttocks and groin.[12][13]

Her injuries were a shame but avoidable with better judgement. It doesn't take too much imagination to understand that holding a disposable cup full of hot liquid, in a moving car, is a situation fraught with an obvious risk.

I think a greater injury was caused to the defendant (and our system of laws) for being held financially responsible for this lady's poor choices.

It would be a major improvement for justice if personal injury trials were decided by judges only and not by juries.

"...holding a disposable cup full of hot liquid, in a moving car."

"...grandson parked so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee."

It would be a major improvement for justice if personal injury trials were decided by judges only and not by juries.

In general, I have a lot of faith in juries as far as justice being served. One can indeed point to exceptions from time to time, but in general I think the system works as it should. Sometimes sizeable awards act as warnings more effective than the small slaps on the wrists that do not have the same effect.

I myself am uneasy by the political leanings of some judges, even at the highest levels, that seem to be a corruption of justice..

I think some folks suffer from failure of imagination, and perhaps some here haven't bothered to read other comments explaining what actually happened. Normal hot coffee wouldn't burn someone that badly if it spilled in their lap. Try to imagine taking a boiling kettle and pouring its contents on yourself. When was the last time you had a cup of coffee that hot? For me, it's never.

Also stop and consider that injury cases like these 2 being discussed here wouldn't make it to trial and receive such large awards unless they were really serious injuries.

sephia, perhaps I assumed more than I should have from the description. The grandson parked so that she could add items to the coffee. The presumption I made was that after her doing so, he would resume driving. And/or, if she drank coffee black, he wouldn't have pulled over.

I do not have faith in juries when it comes to personal injury cases. Injury lawyers are far too cunning with big bad wolf versus poor little victim scenarios that can successfully mislead outcomes. A sad and perhaps even sick example is the law practice of later disgraced former politician John Edwards. He specialized in physician malpractice suits of a particular kind - that forceps deliveries could cause developmental problems, autism, or some other issue (I forget which) in the child so treated. The argument was completely spurious and without an accepted medical basis but was extremely successful when presenting the children's conditions in court to tear at the heartstrings of otherwise well-intentioned jurors. He made so many tens of millions of dollars from his share of undeserved awards that he retired from the active practice of law at a very early age.

Such "heroes" like to parade themselves in public as the protectors of the downtrodden when actually, whose interests come first and foremost to them are usually their own. Non-jury trials would have prevented such misuse of fake but convincing arguments.

"... injury cases like these 2 being discussed here wouldn't make it to trial and receive such large awards unless they were really serious injuries. "

That's not how it works.

Contingent fee injury lawyers will approach the alleged responsible party, present a claim, and hope for an out of court settlement. I intentionally used the word "hope", because since they're not being paid for time spent but rather a positive outcome only, getting a settlement without trial requires the least amount of their time.

Potential defendants typically offer what they think may be an accepted settlement when they think the claim is without merit and that they would prevail in court (but also wishing to minimize time spent). When the plaintiff's attorney is aiming for a bigger payoff than is offered and is willing to invest the time for a trial (again, uncompensated without an award), they do so. Injury awards depend on jurors' emotions and the potential emotional reaction to the claim.

Whether or not something results in a court trial is a result of the actions and decisions of the parties concerned, not anything else. Injury lawyers make financial decisions for themselves, not necessarily legal ones