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.
Neither is a few hundred deaths due to faulty ignition switches, I mean, really, people still buy GM cars!
It’s all good.
How’s business at your franchise?
Cup Half Full: 'Hot Coffee' Serves Up Slanted View Of Liability System