[null and void]

Yes, from your link:

During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard.

McDonalds also said during discovery that, based on a consultants advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees.

Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.

In other words McDonald's KNEW their coffee was dangerously hot, and deliberately and maliciously ignored a long track record of injured customers.

They got off light.

[IYAS9YAS]

In other words McDonald's KNEW their coffee was dangerously hot, and deliberately and maliciously ignored a long track record of injured customers.

Yes, they maliciously served coffee at a temperature their customers kept paying for. The original $2.7 million in punitive damages awarded were for roughly two-days' worth of coffee sales. Assuming a dollar a cup (which I know is high for that era), that's 2.7 Million cups sold in two days - or nearly 500 million cups/year. Over eleven years (yes, I know they grew their market in that time, and sold more coffee in later years - but to keep it simple) that works out to just around 5.42 billion cups sold. Probably more since coffee was less than a dollar a cup in those years.

700 complaints out of 5.42 billion cups sold is not even a statistic.