McDonald’s is being sued over a hot coffee spill, again.
This time, a San Francisco location is being accused of serving a “scalding” cup of coffee with an improperly attached lid, which allegedly resulted in the coffee pouring out on plaintiff Mable Childress’ body and causing “severe burns” after she tried drinking it.
The lawsuit, filed last week, alleged that the elderly woman is suffering from “physical pains, emotional distress and other damages.” The restaurant’s negligence was a “substantial factor” for her injuries, it alleged.
Childress also said in the lawsuit that the restaurant employees “refused” to help her, a point that the McDonald’s denied.
In case anyone still has misconceptions about the famous case that came before. McDonald’s spun public opinion, but she had a legitimate case. https://youtu.be/Q9DXSCpcz9E
Beat me to it. I remember as a teenager hearing adults laugh about this, “how could you not know coffee is hot?? Hahaha”. Holy shit the McDonalds PR really fucked that lady over. It wasn’t until at least a decade later that I learned the reality of the situation and how horrific her burns were.
Fuck McDonalds.
Jay Leno did the most to further that hit job. He spent months spreading lies, all while McDonald’s became a major sponsor of his show.
it also made it onto Seinfeld, it was also pushed by Republicans and their mouthpieces (Fox) that the country ia going to hell everyone can sue for anything bla bla bla, typical moral panic stuff.
that shit was so widespread I heard about the anyone can sue rhetoric about the USA as a kid, and I am from Slovakia
Just want to add that this wasn’t just McDonald’s spinning it for their own purposes, it was part of a larger effort of tort reform - spreading the conception that people are suing for everything, even hot coffee hur dur, so that the public would support things like caps on pain and suffering damages and punitive damages. Corporations wanted more leeway to maximize profits(the reason McDonald’s coffee was so hot was because they could get more coffee out of the beans that way), even if it hurt people, and the public jumped right on board. This was part of the same strategy as denigrating plaintiffs attorneys as “ambulance chasers” and the like. It got to the point that even when people were harmed, they still wouldn’t sue because they didn’t want to be lumped in with “those entitled people suing over everything”. It became a point of pride to get fucked over by corporations and to do nothing about it. Really disgusting how easily the public was manipulated by all that.
What I don’t understand is how she was appealed down to $480K, but the family in FL got $800K for not warning that the nuggets were fresh out of the fryer. The former was way, way, worse.
McDonald’s should be considered guilty unless proven innocent given their track record. Nail em to the wall lady!
They were guilty of making coffee to hot years ago. I have no idea how they were sued for 800k off of selling removeden tenders that were still hot.
Edit: Is the term chicken actually sensored? Appears it shows now, strange
The “en” isn’t censored but the first part is, I thought maybe you’d misspelled “fucking” to “fucken” and it censored that. Maybe just chick is somehow censored? Testing testing c h I c k chick chicken …
Edit: no, and now I just sound like a very hungry madman.
I don’t think “burns herself” is quite the turn of phrase I would’ve chosen but then I don’t like the taste of boot leather so… yeah.
Yeah, I swear I’m reading more and more articles/headlines that seem slanted in favor of the corporate side.
I’m honestly surprised this doesn’t happen more often than it does, considering how much coffee McD’s sells.
They’re supposed to serve it at a safe temperature, and they usually do.
tbh I’m not sure how they managed to overclock their coffee maker. Did they just heat it up on the stove?
Yep, wife used to work for Starbucks. You’re supposed to check/calibrate the thermostat on the machine on a regular basis so you get the coffee hot but not boiling, third degree burns hot. For whatever reason, it has to be done because the thermostats will gradually deviate from their initial settings. If you fail to check your thermostats, eventually someone’s going to burn the fuck out of themselves with a hot drink. Water, which is the main ingredient in any coffee product, has an enormous heat capacity, and will absolutely fuck your shit up before you have a chance to do anything about it.
IIRC, McDonald’s was either deliberately tampering with their thermostats or just failing to check them when that famous case went down, which was how they were found to be negligent.
They determined that the average customer stayed in a given McDonald’s after ordering for x minutes, so they made the coffee so hot it couldn’t be consumed within x minutes in an attempt to get people not to utilize their free refills on coffee. The coffee was so hot it was dangerous. All to save a customer from getting 2 more cents worth of coffee.
I don’t think I understand how it can be hotter than 100 celcius.
I’m not defending McDonald’s here, they can rot.
Like, coffee is mostly water, and water boils at atmospheric pressure at 100c. Milk boils slightly more than 100. I guess the lid would pressurise the steam a little? Maybe the coffee grinds hold the heat far more than the water? I wouldn’t have thought it would be diluted too much to make a difference.
I guess this is a stupid question, because it happened. But how can boiling water cause third degree burns in the quantity of 500ml? I thought it’d have to be much more than that and very prolonged?
Half a liter of boiling water will absolutely do damage, especially if you’re restrained to a seat and can’t get away from it. The water that comes out of your tap at home is probably only in the 140s, max, and that’ll do some damage.
I’m also not certain anyone said the water was greater than 100c. I think the seminal case involved water that was 180-190 degrees F or something, and that it’s standard to be closer to 150 or so, which is essentially as hot as your tap gets at home.
I know your question about the burns is already answered by others but its important to consider that the generally accepted optimal temp for extracting the flavour from coffee beans is approx. 90-95°C, and hotter gives the coffee a more ‘burnt’ or less favourable flavour, so your coffee shouldnt be that hot.
Further to this if you drink your coffee with milk, the milk is frothed at about 65°C which would bring the overall temp down a little more.
This is all in an ideal world where Maccas actually gives a fuck if their coffee is ‘good’
It’s prolonged because the spill happened on clothing, so the boiling water is held on to the skin instead of just running off.
This person likely doesn’t have a case. The reason McD lost the first coffee case was because at the time they were offering free coffee refills, so they cranked up the temperature so people wouldn’t have time to sit and drink multiple cups.
Dozens of people had already been injured by this practice by the point the famous injury happened, and the courts had already warned McD to stop.
background: podcast episode about the McDonalds Hot Coffee Case on You’re Wrong About
