Posted on 08/16/2006 11:49:35 AM PDT by markomalley
If only it had had that insulating sleeve!!!
You just know this was going to happen after the McDonald's incident.
I'm just surprised there isn't more of it.
This is a little different from the McDonalds case. In the McDonalds case, the plaintiff spilled the coffee on herself.
Here (at least according to the story), the Starbucks clerk spilled the hot coffee on the patron.
I hear that the Starbucks employee yelled "Here's your coffee, Macaca!" and then slid it.
Yeah. That's true. But I'm still surprised we aren't see more lawsuits based on 'spilled coffee'.
Unlike the Wendy's 'finger in chilli' incidents, with spilled coffee you wouldn't have to find a 'donor' first!
:0)
The insulating sleeve part is asinine, the amount awarded is asinine, if the coffee was slid and fell because of the employees fault thats not asinine, however like I mentioned earlier the amount awarded is way too much, especially for somebody who's job doesnt depend on there foot.
It's the mouth. And she was going to pour that hot, scalding liquid right in it!
I see she was careful to claim permanent impairment. Infuriating. All retail establishment, restaurants, etc. could cut their losses by refusing service to attorneys. I guess the lawyers who control our legislatures would have themselves declared a protected minority along with the gays. Rant over.
See!!!!
Told you Starbucks was the root of all evil. Serving HOT coffee.. how dare they! ;o)
MM
stay away from the balm!
I'd call scalding a lawyer a good thing. Boiling oil would be better though.
Yeah, that part of the story is weird. Perhaps the editor deleted the "but she took it anyway" right after the comma. It does make you wonder what is missing from the story.
Deep fried in peanut oil??? That would be really WOKY.
Paging Jackie Chiles.....
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/443793p-373795c.html
A BAD EXPERIENCE at Starbucks turned into big bucks - 301,000 of them - for a Manhattan lawyer who got a painful hotfoot when a steaming cup of coffee toppled onto her at the java palace.
"I jumped back and looked down," Alice Griffin, 42, testified. "My foot was steaming, and the puddle was steaming."
(Snip)
Griffin of the East Village got hurt when she stopped at the Starbucks on Seventh Ave. and 49th St. on her way to work Feb. 10, 2004, and ordered a large decaf.
She testified the clerk slid the sleeveless cup toward her, but it tipped off the edge, losing its top and fell on her foot - leaving her in agony.
Griffin testified the sneakers, socks and stockings she was wearing trapped the hot coffee on her skin.
She said the clerk said nothing - and simply gave her another cup of coffee.
Griffin's lawyer, Barney Anderson, said the clerk violated Starbucks' rules that require coffee cups to have sleeves and securely fastened lids, and that they never be handed to customers or slid on counters.
"It was kind of a perfect storm," that caused the decaf dump on Griffin, he said.
Griffin told the court the coffee caused second-degree burns and permanent nerve damage to the top of her foot.
She said she still suffers pain when she puts her foot in anything too hot or cold and can only wear certain kinds of shoes.
It gets better...
http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/15/news/starbucks.reut/
According to court documents and Griffin's testimony, she was at the service counter of a Starbucks coffee shop in Manhattan in February 2004 when a Starbucks employee spilled coffee on her left foot. She suffered a 2-inch (5-cm) second-degree burn.
A neurologist who testified for Griffin said there was permanent damage to the nerve ending of her foot, causing "tingling, numbness" and made it difficult for her to wear the types of shoes she previously wore and interfered with her ballet dancing.
After looking into that McDonalds issue some more I decided that it wasn't quite as insanely judiciated as it first appeared. As I recall... the cup that held the coffee required the lid to be installed in order for the cup to have structural integrity. In other words, you couldn't hold the cup without the lid because the sides just squished in and collapsed. Combined with that was that the coffee was brewed using superheated (pressurized >212) water, which meant that by the time it got to the woman it was reeeaaaalllly hot. As I recall the story going, they handed her the big cup-o-joe and the lid immediately popped off (wasn't put on all the way), which caused the walls of the cup to collapse in her hands, which caused the whole thing to spill directly onto .... Ms. Winky!
What McDonalds really got smacked for was because the cup couldn't simply be held without the lid being in place, which was an obviously dumb way to try and save a penny or two per cup.
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