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.
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)
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.